


This One's For Bravery and This One's For Me

by hansbekhart



Series: Collected Bones of All Kinds [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Captain America - historical figure, Child Death (mention), Interfaith Character, Jewish Character, M/M, Physical Abuse, Recovery, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2710205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart/pseuds/hansbekhart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, he's read most all of the books that have been written about Captain America.  At first he was desperate to understand why people were so strange about him, why it felt like the whole world was staring at him, waiting for him to do something amazing.  Before the Chitauri invasion, no one had told him that a generation of Americans had grown up watching Captain America cartoons on Saturday morning.  No one had said that the stupid propaganda reels he shot with the USO and later with the Commandos would be dissected by scores of academics for cultural meaning, that every part of his life and death already had a book written about it.  No one had told him what kind of symbol Captain America had become, because the answer was too complicated, and had changed every decade or so anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Without the rumble of the bike, the world settles into a white noise of crickets and far off highway sounds. Steve's only been back in New York for a few months (two months, three weeks exactly) and already it's strange to leave the city. He eases back against the bike, ankles crossed, listening to it tick as it cools off. After a moment, he hears a scuffle of gravel off to the left, warning him of approach.

"Check out all this nature," Natasha says, her cool voice drifting out of the darkness. 

"Yep," Steve says, and tips his head back up to the sky. He tries to remember when he last looked up and saw stars and comes up blank. Probably Nazi Germany, then. "Thought you'd be meeting us in Ukraine."

She lifts herself up onto the seat of the bike, a hand on his shoulder to stay steady. The heels of her boots click against the exhaust pipe. He can smell her perfume, faint over the smell of the trees around them. "What, and fly commercial? Not a chance, Rogers."

"It's good to see you, Natasha," he tells her. Her smile is barely more than a glimmer of teeth in the dark, but he's glad to see it.

"You too," she says. "I'm sorry to drag you back in."

"When Fury says jump," Steve says, dry as a bone. 

She shakes her head. "I asked for you," she says. "Got a tip on something that I thought you should be in on."

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "Thought you said I shouldn't pull on that thread."

"Yeah, well," she says, wryly, "then he showed up on Stark's doorstep, didn't he? If you're keeping him, you should know the rest of it."

"I'm not keeping him," Steve says sharply. "Bucky can keep himself."

There's a beat of silence. He can feel Natasha's eyes on him, considering. "You're right," she says, after a moment. "I'm sorry."

He bumps her shoulder with his own, head down and a little embarrassed. The last hour of the ride his whole body had started to ache, shoulders and back pulling tight and tense. It's been a long time since he got his spine straightened out but sometimes he remembers pretty clearly what it used to feel like. 

Natasha saves him from himself, as always. Casual, she asks, "How are you, these days? How's Barnes?"

Not always lucid. Barely verbal. Erratic. Angry. Exhausting. Heartbreaking. "He's still in there," Steve settles on. "That's what matters."

She exhales, soft. "How can you tell?" There's a strange tone in her voice as she asks, low and guarded. 

"I've known Buck my whole life," Steve says. "I'd know him anywhere."

Overhead, he can see the Milky Way. The only constellations he ever learned came from Jim Morita, who'd grown up in wide open farm country in California, and couldn't cope with snow but could pad out their rations with mushrooms and plants he'd scavenge from the woods. There: Cassiopeia. There: Ursus. There: Orion. Jim's been dead for twenty eight years, which is a year older than he'd been when Steve had met him. 

"It must be nice," Natasha says. "To be so certain."

"Must be," Steve says. "Looks like our ride's here." 

The plane comes in low and lands vertically like a helicopter, quieter than you'd expect seeing the size of it. He offers Natasha a hand off the bike, and pushes it around to where they're dropping the cargo bay door. There are five silhouettes waiting for them at the top. It takes him a moment to place the center figure, but when recognition hits it brings cold anger with it. He hears Natasha suck in a quick breath. When he looks over her face is schooled, inscrutable.

"Agent Romanoff," Phil Coulson says. "Captain Rogers. Welcome to the Bus."

To his credit, he meets their eyes evenly, holding himself at parade rest. For a long moment everyone just looks at each other, the silence stretching tight as a wire. Vaguely Steve is conscious of Coulson's team staring at him, at Natasha, at Coulson himself, waiting for someone to make a move. Coulson takes a deep breath.

"I apologize if this is - unexpected, but I -"

"Save it," Steve says, cutting him off. "I'm sure you had your reasons." He gives a nod to the woman standing at Coulson's left. "Agent May, good to see you." 

Coulson jumps a little, but Steve's already moving past then, pushing the bike forward and around the line of agents towards the rig he sees in the corner. "Let me help, sir," a member of Coulson's team says, detaching from the group to help Steve strap the bike down for the flight. The plane, he assumes, is cutting edge - he can see a gleaming medical bay at the end of the cargo hold - but the tie down is still just straps and buckles, comfortably familiar. He breathes through his nose, tries to calm down a bit. When he's finished the agent offers him a hand up, and a big smile. 

"It's an honor to finally meet you, sir," the agent says. Inwardly, Steve sighs, but then the man follows up with, "my name's Antoine Triplett. My grandfather was Jaques Dernier." 

"No kidding," Steve says, thrown completely. "Then it's an honor to meet _you_ , Agent Triplett." 

"My grandfather said his years with you were some of the best in his life," Triplett says. It takes Steve a second to realize he's said it in French. He looks the man up and down, who lifts his chin and accepts the scrutiny. 

"You're a lot better looking than he was," he tells Triplett, answering in kind. Triplett's smile is blinding.

"I get that a lot," he says. "Grandpa was mighty lucky, marrying my grandma. But I hear he knew how to bring the funk."

Steve laughs and offers Triplett his hand. Like a switch has been flipped, the tension in the cargo bay eases. Triplett introduces him to Agents Simmons and Skye, who both look far too young to be there. Simmons is visibly strained around the eyes and disappears quickly back into the medical bay. Everyone else troops upstairs to the command center. Skye slides behind the large display console like she belongs there.

"Are we gonna have Howling Commando story time," she says, grinning, "because that would be uh- _mazing_."

"Some other time," Coulson says, and Skye frowns, like someone remembering it's unprofessional to pout. Up in the debriefing room Coulson's team has assumed roughly the same positions they had before: Skye and Triplett bunched together, May close to Coulson's side. Natasha's already seated and outwardly paying no attention to them, typing on a tablet.

"Flight time will be a little over eight hours," Coulson says. "We have - some free beds if you'd like to rest." 

"Yes, please," Natasha says, not looking up. 

Coulson looks at Steve. "Maybe later," Steve mutters. He can hardly look at the man. He'd signed the trading cards, blood and all, and given them to Maria Hill - to put in the casket, or do with as she saw fit. Steve had gone to the funeral too, had sat an awkward shiva with Nick Fury and an aching, raging Clint Barton. And a month ago Tony had given him SHIELD's files on the Winter Soldier, only they hadn't been calling him that at the time. 

Coulson squares his shoulders. "Captain, I asked for this detail myself," he says. "I wanted the chance to explain. I know you have no reason to trust me in regards to, well, anything. Or to trust in SHIELD, given the - given everything that's happened in the last few months. I apologize that at the time I believed the secrecy was necessary. And I apologize that you and the other Avengers were misled, regardless of how - sincerely the sacrifice was meant."

" _Why_ was it necessary?" Natasha asks. "Why would Fury do this to us? To you?"

Coulson is quiet, staring down at the ground. "I don't know anymore," he says softly. "I trusted in the system."

"That's not good enough," Steve says.

"Steve," Natasha says softly.

"No, it's all right," Coulson says. A smile lingers on his mouth like he'd forgotten he'd put it on back before they arrived. "It wasn't good enough. The system was corrupt and broken. We were meant to protect people from exactly the kind of evil that almost destroyed all of us."

"From what I understand, HYDRA thought they were protecting people too," Steve says. 

Coulson's expression hardens. "Captain Rogers, my team and I swore an oath to SHIELD - to serve and protect those who can't protect themselves. The ideals SHIELD was founded on were pure. And they're still worth believing in. That's something I won't apologize for."

Steve looks up sharply, catching something in Coulson's tone. "You're rebuilding?" Across the room he can see Natasha lean forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on Coulson. May shifts, subtly moving closer. 

"Yes," Coulson says. His tone is mild, even as he looks over at May, wordlessly warning her off. "After we drop you off in Kiev, we'll be picking up a few agents who have finally asked to come in, for evaluation and - potentially - recruitment. I'd like to offer you my personal assurance that the vetting process will be - quite thorough."

Steve braces his elbows on his knees, head heavy on his neck. He wishes he could talk to Sam, but they're radio silent until Steve's back in the country. He wishes he could talk to Bucky - the one he used to know, who knew _him_ , who would talk back. "I should've known Fury would do something like this."

"Hey," Skye objects, her hands braced on the display table. "We're here because we want to be."

"I'm sure he wanted you to believe that," Steve says. Even he feels surprised at how bitter it sounds, coming out of his own mouth.

"Steve," Natasha says again, warning. She holds his eyes evenly until he looks away, and then turns her attention towards the others. "We can have this discussion some other time, when we're all a little more - calm. We appreciate the ride, Agent Coulson. We'll be out of your hair as soon as we can."

"Fine," Coulson says, clipped. "Simmons will arrange whatever equipment you need before we land. We'll rendezvous in two days; call if you need an extraction any sooner."

"Thank you, Agent Coulson," Natasha says. "I'm going to sleep, then - if there's noth -" 

"One more thing," Steve says, unable to help himself. He can see Natasha's lips thin, but he plunges ahead regardless. "I need to ask Agent Coulson something."

"I'm listening," Coulson says softly, his face unreadable.

Steve pulls the tablet from his jacket pocket. He already has the image up, from God only knows when. He flicks his fingers across the screen, and the Winter Soldier appears on the big display, large as life in the center of the room. It's a grainy still from the only video anyone managed to get of him, caught in the act of stepping off the hood of a car, crushed and crumpled under his boots. 

"Do you know this man?" Steve asks, and tries not to make it sound like a threat. Coulson frowns, steps closer to the image. His eyes catch on the metal arm and widen. 

"Steve, maybe this is something that should be done in private," Natasha says evenly. 

After a moment Coulson nods, not looking away from the Winter Soldier. "Give us a moment." 

Skye and Triplett nod, a little reluctantly. "Man, no one ever told me Captain America was such a _dick_ ," Skye whispers to Triplett, as they leave. 

May stays where she is. "I do know him," Coulson says. He looks over at Steve. "I've met him twice. Once in 1990 and again in '94."

Steve knows this. He's read the files. Pre-mission briefings. Field reports, the after actions. Autopsies. But it's good to hear Coulson admit it. "Did you know who he was?" Steve asks.

Coulson shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "His identity was classified. Level 9 and higher only. I never even saw his face, only - ". He gestures, one hand in the air over his eyes. "Just once while we were staging, in '94. They were - unsettling."

"That's one word for it," Natasha says. "You didn't think anything was strange about him?"

He looks over at her, offers one of his wincing smiles. "Other than the arm? He didn't talk much. He sounded American, when he did - which surprised me. You saw a big red star like that in the early nineties, America wasn't the first thing that came to mind. It's strange - I hadn't thought of him in years, until quite recently. We - became involved in action against a group using enhanced soldiers. I'd never seen anything like it before, except for him. Is he HYDRA? Is that why you're going to Ukraine, to take him out?"

Steve feels the question like someone's punched him in the chest, dull and aching. "We already have him in custody," Natasha replies, before he can say anything. "We're looking into his history."

"I wish I had more information for you," Coulson says, "but we didn't exactly make friends. He kept to himself until it was time to move, and in the field he worked independently. He brought his own guys, but they didn't interact with him much either. We never spoke directly."

"You remember a lot, considering it was twenty years ago," Steve says, rough.

"Yeah," Coulson says slowly, looking back over at the display. "He left an impression. I'm a hard man to spook, but the look in his eyes ..." He shakes his head. 

He might have had more to say, but Steve's already on his feet and clattering back down the staircase towards the cargo bay. His heart feels like it's about to collapse in on itself and he stands gripping the railing for a long time, trying to get back under control.

He knows the look that Coulson means. Bucky is - strange to be around even on good days and downright scary on bad. He doesn't often seem to - _go away_ in his own head. For the most part he's just still and quiet, absorbing everything around him, even if he doesn't talk much. But his face doesn't seem to work right anymore. 

Steve tries not to think about how Bucky was _before_ , because it hurts too much and it isn't useful to either one of them, but back in Brooklyn Buck had been all smiles as long as Steve had known him, all easy affection and laughter, always with his heart on his sleeve. He'd closed up a lot by the time Steve got to him in Italy, but he'd been through Hell and back and that was just to be expected. He didn't smile near as much, but Steve had still known what was going through his head just watching him squint down at a town in the distance, or work his jaw over a logistical flaw in Steve's plans. 

Now he looks scared to death half the time, even when Steve's positive he's not. It's like Bucky's wearing a fright mask of his own face, the muscles slack, skin baggy and aged, jaw loose unless he's angry about something - eyes blown wide and wild. Steve can't blame Coulson for having been spooked, even if most of him wants to tear the whole plane apart. 

He's so Goddamn _disappointed_ in this man, this man everyone at SHIELD spoke about in such reverent tones, this man who asked Steve to sign his Goddamn trading cards and who ran operations with Bucky Barnes twice and didn't know it, even if Steve himself hadn't known until the mask came off. Even if Steve could have killed the Winter Soldier and never known.

He counts breaths. Now he is breathing _in_. Now he is breathing _out_. 

He feels his muscles unlock, one at a time. Now he is breathing _in_. Now he is breathing _out_. 

He hears a quiet, careful step on the grating behind him.

"Agent Romanoff was coming to check on you," May says. "I asked if she wouldn't mind if I did it, instead." 

Steve shifts back a little, unwinding his hands from the railing. He winces; there are ten dents where his fingers had been. He looks back to see a little smile quirked on May's face. "Don't worry about it," she says. "We've seen a lot worse."

"I'm sorry about that, back there," he says, sighing. His whole body aches, even though the strain from the ride has already gone away. He feels tired to death.

She studies his face, silently. After a moment she lowers herself to the ground, letting her legs dangle down over the cargo bay. It's an oddly casual gesture for her, hands tucked under her knees, waiting patiently for him to follow. He does, slowly. 

"You seem different," he offers. She smiles, looking out into the hangar space.

"I am," she says. "Those were dark days, though. For both of us."

Steve shrugs, lacing his hands through the grating. "They weren't so bad." 

She slants a look over at him that says she knows exactly how much bullshit is in that statement, which is a lot even for him. They _had_ been dark days, right after the Chitauri invasion - when he was still counting his time here in weeks instead of months, when every day was an angry, throbbing ache from the time he woke up til the time he spent not really sleeping, staring up at the ceiling of whatever military base they'd sent him to that week to learn modern warfare: melee combat or modern strategy or weapons training from whoever was the expert around. Melinda May had been an expert in a lot of things.

"Well, I was pretty happy to have you to whale on for a few months. It was ... therapeutic," she says, musingly.

"Yeah, good times," Steve says, grinning.

"Don't be so rough on Phil," May tells him, and Steve's shoulders tighten back up. "He looks up to you. They all do. They could use something to hold on to, right now."

"They don't know me," Steve mutters, looking away. 

May purses her lips. "Did you know that Phil was vetted by Peggy Carter personally?" she asks, after a moment. "So was Maria Hill - although that was a few years after Carter retired - and Fury himself. Phil's told me about how it went for him - he couldn't handle meeting one of his childhood heroes and embarrassed the hell out of himself."

"He told me he'd watched me sleeping," Steve says, and May grimaces.

"So I'm sure you can imagine how bad it was, with Carter," she says. "He blabbed on and on to her about losing his father when he was young, and choosing you as a symbol of what to live up to - an ideal to aspire to."

"Let me guess," he says, "she threw him out of her office."

She nods. "He thought he'd blown it, and he'd be exiled to the Baltic desk forever. But a week later his new clearance and paperwork came through, with a handwritten note from Carter - that SHIELD had been founded by people who were trying to live up to your example, and if he was serious about that, he'd better be ready to prove it."

Steve looks down at his hands. He's always had big hands, too big for his frame before he'd met Dr. Erskine. The skin on his knuckles looks weathered and chapped, but by morning that'll be gone too. His heart aches, the way it always does when Peggy is mentioned. He likes thinking of Peggy kicking some punk kid out of her office for the nerve of linking his story to hers, but he's not sure what to do with the rest of it. Peggy's made similar comments to him, before - telling him how and why she made the choices she did, after the war - and it's always - he's never known how to - 

"Melinda, I," he says, and doesn't know how to continue.

"It's okay," May tells him. "Just keep it in mind." 

He nods, and she smiles. It's sweeter than he remembers. "Get some sleep, Captain," she says, and squeezes his hand before she goes.

He listens to her quiet footsteps fade, and then heads back upstairs himself. The crew quarters are back up beyond the command center, near the front of the plane. He passes a wet bar on the way that he gives a wistful glance to. They've got a nice setup here. Hell of a lot nicer than what the SSR had had to give to the Commandos.

The door to one of the rooms is cracked, and a light still on inside, so Steve goes in and quietly closes the door behind himself. Natasha gives him a brief smile and pats the bed next to her. She's propped up on a comfy looking pile of pillows, a blanket tucked up under her arms, her knees up and tablet balanced on one thigh. He sits down obediently and leans back, relaxing a little into her. 

"Oof," she says, and they take a second to adjust. Settled again, she asks,"You okay?" 

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just -" He sighs.

She quirks a smile at him and pats his knee. Sometimes she seems so much like Bucky's sister Becca that it takes his breath away: her rare, sidelong smiles, the deep timbre of her voice. For a while he'd wondered if it had been planned like that - the way that SHIELD had made his neighbor a nurse and given him a team of rough and tumble commandos for field work - to get close to him. He had been grateful to learn otherwise. 

"You never told me you were trained by the Cavalry," she comments. 

"She hates being called that," Steve says. Natasha's thigh is warm against his back, underneath the blanket. It's so nice to touch someone. For a moment he misses being small; no one ever really touches him these days.

"It's a very accurate nickname, though." She looks up, eyes sharp. "Hey, you ever give Sharon a call?" 

He shakes his head. "Been kinda busy."

She snorts. "Story of your life."

"Suppose so," he says, closing his eyes and letting his head tilt back. Tony Stark touches, casually - the back of a hand slapping into Steve's chest, a thump on his shoulder, seeing if it will sting. Before that - Dum Dum, maybe, a playful fist like he was gonna throw a punch into Steve's stomach, a warm shoulder next to a fire. Before that - Bucky, always Bucky. Bucky was an arm around Steve's shoulders, a broad chest and long limbs curled tight around Steve's whole body, a hand in Steve's hair. But Bucky doesn't touch him now either. 

"You gonna sleep, while we're in the air?" she asks.

"Maybe," he says, although he feels better now than he has in days. Maybe he could use some sleep. 

"Well, I plan on it, so don't wear out your welcome," she says, and he laughs. 

"Good night, Natasha," he says, and clicks her light off on the way out.

The plane is almost silent now. He can hear May and Coulson talking quietly in the cockpit, discussing the next day's flight plan. He can hear who he assumes is Triplett in the galley, turning pages and shifting his weight on a stool, periodically. The door to the available room was helpfully left open, although it smells a little stale when he closes the door behind himself. There's evidence of another person - engineering manuals, some socks stuffed hastily back into the drawers, toes peeping out. He wonders where they are, the person who lives here. 

He strips down to his shorts and pulls the covers over himself. He's got probably six hours or so before he'll need to get up and get ready. He lets his eyes adjust to the darkness, takes slow, deep breaths. 

In the end, he doesn't end up sleeping.

-

Kiev, strangely, reminds him of Brooklyn. The air is cool and it smells like most cities do. The house they've come to is in a residential neighborhood full of narrow rowhouses, quiet and lined with stunted trees. Some of the trees have hand lettered signs that Steve assumes say something like _Please Curb Your Dog_. He and Natasha are on the roof of the building opposite, watching.

Three stories, at least one level underground. Oddities in the building plans that could mean a panic room on the second floor. Single occupancy, a leftover relic from the days they used to build them like that. Building title traced to a shell company in Belarus. Minimal signs of activity, no unusual use of gas or electric.

Bucky's family had a house a lot like this one, old and weathered and damn cold in the winter.

"I'll come from above, you go from below," he says, adjusting the helmet strap under his chin. He's dressed in the blues today, the closest thing he's ever had to a stealthy uniform. Natasha is in black, a scarf wrapped around her neck against the wind, her hair tied back in a loose bun. "You've got five minutes to get into position. Then I'll start making noise."

She nods. They scoot back from the edge and he hands over the duffle, pulls the shield off his back, most of his attention still on their target. He feels her hand on his arm, and looks down to find her staring up at him with troubled eyes. 

"Steve," she says, "if my source is correct, if we find what I'm expecting us to find - I'm sorry. You don't have to look at any of it. If you want to burn everything, sight unseen, I'll hold the matches."

"Thank you," he tells her, and means it. His whole body is braced for the blow. If it had to be anyone, he's glad that it's her here with him today. 

She gives him a nod and disappears down the stairwell. Steve moves back to the edge, crouching to stay hidden behind the low wall facing the street. Movement on the top floor. A man with a dog comes out the front door and heads west. Three minutes. A gray sedan rolls down the street slowly, goes straight through the intersection at the end of the block. Two minutes. He's not going to burn - whatever it is they find. Someday Bucky will want it. One minute.

He draws back far enough to get a running start, and leaps. The building they'd watched from is barely ten feet taller than the target, so it's close. He pulls his legs up to avoid clipping an ankle, tucks and rolls twice, comes out of it onto his knees so he has enough leverage to smash through the skylight with the shield.

He breaks a table on his way down, where four men are sitting. One is knocked out by the shrapnel. One by the shield. The walls are thin plaster - if he threw the shield it'd probably go right through - no good. The third is pulling a gun, hands unsteady, eyes widening with recognition - take the gun from him and break his face with it. The fourth is a blur of motion at the edge of his vision, diving for something, bringing it up to chest level to - 

Steve flips the gun around in his hand and fires before the man can pull the pin of the grenade. It's only when the body slumps down against the windowsill that he sees it wasn't a man at all. It's a child, no more than fourteen. Pimply skin and patchy, wispy fuzz on his chin, arms sticking out like chicken wings from a baggy tank top. The grenade is still in one hand. It's quick, at least. 

He doesn't want to leave. The others in the room are older but not by much. The one that went down with the table is already starting to stir. He can't hear anything below but that doesn't mean much.

He throws himself from the third floor landing to the second, shield up. Second and first floor are clear. Natasha's waiting for him down in what used to be the basement, sitting in a leather office chair, ankle crossed over one knee. There's another teenager on the ground. This one's alive.

"Captain America!" the teenager gasps out. His nose is bleeding and his hand are cuffed behind his back. He sounds American, and he stares up at Steve with a lot more awe than fear. 

"What have we got?" Steve asks, ignoring him.

Natasha gestures. On the other side of the room, there are stacks of boxes nearly up to the ceiling. They're all labeled with the same neat hand: a designation, and a span of dates.

Steve takes a deep breath. "Okay."

-

Rather than wait for the man with the dog to come back, potentially with older, better trained soldiers, they borrow a car from the street and spend a tense twenty minutes bringing all of the boxes up. Steve takes eight boxes each trip, limited only by the height of the hallway. They work in silence. It feels a little anticlimactic as they pull away from the curb without incident, Bucky's files loaded all the way up to the top of the car.

He tells Natasha about the kid with the grenade. "They're recruiting young," Natasha says thoughtfully. "Guess that explains how they have so many people willing to die for them."

She gets on the phone to Coulson's team. They're directed to a rundown warehouse in an industrial part of town, to hunker and wait for extraction at 0600. When they get their they unload the car and divvy up the boxes according to language. Steve takes German, which gives him 1945 through 1949, and 1953 through 1959. Natasha takes the Russian boxes: 1950 through 1952, 1960 through 1964, which seems to be the extent of the cache. They set up some of Tony's robots to begin scanning documents, putting aside microfilm, video tapes, cassette tapes, crumbling scraps of clothing, an entire box of vials of blood from 1947, anything that can't be immediately scanned or categorized. 

Natasha's face is impassive as she sorts through her boxes, her breathing steady. If he couldn't hear the flutter of her heartbeat, he'd think she was unmoved.

At first, Steve tries not to read anything. He can't remember the last time he spoke German (it was at least 70 years ago) and he tells himself it would be too much of an effort to start translating. He needs to focus on organizing the information, not breaking down over it. 

He finds a photo tucked inside the first folder of 1945. It's a closely cropped image of Bucky kneeling on the ground, taken at three quarters view. There are hands all over him, pinning him in place so the photo can be taken. One set of hands is fisted in his hair, forcing his head back. Another is gripping Bucky's left arm just above his armpit, holding it still so that every detail of the uncovered wound is clear. Bucky is naked. His mouth is open. He's looking straight into the camera.

Steve sets the folder down and goes to walk it off. 

Natasha says nothing when he comes back. If she heard him put a fist through the concrete slab he found around back, it doesn't show on her face. He sits back down at the little table, takes out the second folder from 1945.

Now he is breathing in.

Now he is breathing out.

He knew this was what it was gonna be like. He knew Buck must have been tortured, for literal decades, to force him to become the machine Steve met in DC. 

_If you can't handle a single photograph - how are you ever going to be able to help him?_

He opens the folder.

The pages are yellowed with age, ringed with coffee circles and creased at the edges, the evidence of decades of casual handling. As he flips through they send up puffs of good smelling dust. The German is all written in the same neat handled that labeled most of the boxes, which is identified on each folder as a Dr Renke.

It's good, to be able to give a name to evil. In the first week at Stark's tower they'd made several attempts to debrief Bucky, which had been an exercise in frustration and heartache. Bucky understood what was going on around him and seemed to understand what had been done to him; he just didn't care. He went where Bruce told him to go, ignored Sam and Tony equally, and watched Steve with close attention. When questioned about HYDRA or the arm or his missions, his answers had been brief and profoundly incurious. But Bucky had spoke about _the doctor_ , never with a name attached, a thread of affection winding through his flat recitations. 

_The doctor repaired any injuries. If surgery was required, it was performed by the doctor._

_The doctor coordinated my training and any upgrades to my arm. He didn't work on the hardware itself. That was someone else. I wasn't told their name._

_The doctor gave me cigarettes and candy when I returned to base, if I had done well. He helped me to improve fine motor control in my hand by teaching me to roll the cigarettes myself._

Natasha's voice drifts over him, cutting through the haze across his eyes. "The good doctor's dead."

Steve looks up. "Yeah? When?" 

"1958," she says. "Barnes killed him."

"Good," Steve says, and goes back to reading.

-

He wakes Natasha up at 0500. The robots finished scanning an hour ago. Steve hasn't slept. He spent the hours organizing, condensing and relabeling the leftovers. The 1940s have nine cartons. The 1950s have six. The 1960s have two. The entire cache had been nineteen years of Bucky's medical history, what had made him the way he is now. There hadn't been a scrap of information about any of his missions as the Winter Soldier - just the injuries he'd come back with. Steve wonders how many treasure troves are out there like this - if there's another gang of HYDRA children guarding the mission reports, if they had other people frozen like Bucky, rebuilt to serve.

He looks over at Natasha, who is silently repacking her gear. He's never gone looking for her story; it had felt like a violation. But he does wonder sometimes, what made her the way she is. 

At 0530 she comes to stand with him, looking at the massed pile of paperwork. Towards the end he hadn't really bothered restacking after the robots were finished with each tower, so it looks a mess. She offers him a lighter.

Everything is recorded, safe on the same servers that Tony uses to protect his own data. The leftovers will be catalogued and filed away as well, by one of Tony's AIs or by Steve himself. When Bucky wants his files, they'll be there. 

The fire's still going as Triplett and Skye help them carry the boxes onto the plane. They don't ask. Coulson's in the lab, in deep discussion with Simmons, who vanishes as soon as she seems to realize they're back on the plane. Beyond introductions, Steve hasn't heard her speak once. As they tie the cartons down, he's aware of Coulson standing alone in the lab, looking at nothing.

Coulson seems to have collected himself by the time they're all finished, and he comes out to join the knot of people in the cargo bay. There's a beautiful bruise blooming under his left eye. Natasha takes one look at him and bursts out laughing, bright and joyful. 

Coulson rolls his eyes. "He's upstairs," he tells her, and she abandons her bag on the floor of the hangar and takes the stairs two at a time.

He sees Steve looking at him. "Looks painful," Steve says. 

Coulson shrugs. "I earned it," he says. Steve can't argue with that. 

Coulson's team had followed Natasha, and they're standing alone. Coulson clears his throat. "If you need access to any equipment, you have free rein of anything in the lab or on the plane itself. If you need a private space to make any calls or review your findings," he gestures at the pile of boxes, "you may use my office, although I feel obligated to warn you that there may be Howling Commando memorabilia around."

Steve shifts, folding his hands in front of him. The engines start up, and they drift a few steps into the lab, away from the noise. The door slides shut and it's quiet again, the air cool and recycled-smelling. Steve sends a brief glance over the table in front of him, cluttered with half completed weapons and MRI scans. He still has the helmet and the uniform on. The last trace of smoke is still lingering in his nose. It had helped, to see it burn. "What's next for you and your team?" he asks.

Coulson's eyes widen, briefly. "After this, we'll go dark for a bit," he says. "Barton and Hartley were the last people on the rather unfortunately short list of agents I'm _fairly_ sure we can trust. Once we're able to clear Hartley's people, we'll start planning our next steps. I think the Bus will need to go into storage for a while, I'm sad to say - she's a bit too _known_ , at the moment."

"Have you thought about scraping off all the SHIELD logos?" Steve says. 

Coulson sighs. "That'd be a good first step, I suppose. Actually, I was thinking of looking into stealth technology for her. I don't know if you've heard, but we're fugitives now."

Steve frowns. "I hadn't heard, no."

"It probably wasn't the best idea to take her on this run," Coulson admits. "We've got some heat on us domestically and my contacts in the EU have let me know of - some very unfavorable action starting to happen there, in regards to SHIELD and any known agents still on the continent."

"Are they in danger?" Steve asks.

Coulson smiles, as if he's said something funny. "I suppose that depends on where they're standing. Not everyone who wasn't HYDRA will stay loyal to SHIELD. Maybe not everyone should." He reaches one hand out and delicately straightens the stack of MRI readouts on the table in front of him. For a long moment he only stands there, two fingers at the corner of one image, looking old and tired.

"When SHIELD was taken," Coulson says, "it was - a precision strike, by HYDRA. What happened at the Triskelion was dramatic, to say the least, but it was only one piece of the overall attack. Every key location, every top agent, every vulnerability was struck at the same time. My team was, up until quite recently, almost strictly mobile ... and it was as though the whole world went dark at once."

Underneath them the plane is moving, taxiing down the wide road they'd used as a landing strip. Steve barely feels the wheels go up - just the sudden lack of motion. 

Coulson sighs, apparently too used to the transition to comment on it. "We don't even have a way to count the immediate casualties that were taken at any of our facilities. We're sifting through the data dump, of course, but the way that HYDRA managed to hide their infrastructure inside of our own was so skillful that we're _still_ having trouble even determining who was a part of HYDRA."

He glances up, offers Steve a sad, lopsided smile. "It's really almost - awe inspiring, what they managed to accomplish, even apart from Project Insight."

"I didn't know about all that," Steve says, numbly. 

Coulson shrugs, unaffected. "Why would you? SHIELD excelled at compartmentalization. With all due respect, you wouldn't have seen the whole picture any more than any other specialized agent."

Steve remembers walking into the Triskelion for the first time and being amazed at the scope of it, how _many_ people were rushing around, like busy little ants. After a while it had faded to background noise, the way even Times Square does if you're around it every day, and although he'd known that SHIELD's resources were enormous he'd never had the clearance or the curiosity to map out the web. Would it have made any difference if he had wanted to know more, even just a little?

Coulson smiles, squaring his shoulders. "Anyway, it's not your problem. Please feel free to make use of any of our resources, while we still have them. Although I'm sorry to say it seems we disagree on several fundamental issues, it's been a pleasure to have you on board."

"Thank you," Steve says, automatically. "But what -"

The lab doors behind him open, letting in a whoosh of diesel smelling air and the hum of the engines. Coulson looks over Steve's shoulder and frowns. It's Skye, looking caught out, holding a tablet out in front of herself like a shield. "Hey there," she says, drawling the words out. She steps fully into the lab next to Steve, the doors sliding closed behind her. 

"Hey, Skye," Coulson returns. "Everything okay? Please say yes, I can't handle any more crises today."

"Yeah, uh," Skye says, and stops. She grins sidelong at Steve, looking apologetic. "Sorry, it's just, you know -"

She makes a gesture at his chest with both hands, the tablet clutched awkwardly in one, but doesn't elaborate. "Anyway, I came down here for a reason, I guess. I was thinking about the guy with the metal arm, the one you and Agent Romanoff are looking for information on. He's the Winter Soldier, isn't he?"

The answer must show on Steve's face, because she lights up and lets go of the tablet long enough to make a victory fist. "I mean," she continues, hurriedly, "I know everyone thinks that the Winter Soldier's just a ghost story but my uh, this hacktivist group I used to know called the Rising Tide, there was a member who was _super into_ the whole Cold War conspiracy thing. She compiled a pretty decent dossier on assassinations attributed to the Winter Soldier. I could get in touch with her and see if she'll send over all of her info. You know, if you wanted. If you could be nice about it."

"Of course," Steve says, and then catches himself. "Wait, this wouldn't be someone called grassyfuckingknoll, would it?"

An eyebrow goes up. "How'd you know that?" she asks. "And - wow, did you just say 'fucking'?"

"I have an alert set up, for anything about - anything the Winter Soldier was involved with in DC," he answers. "Someone named grassyfuckingknoll's created two subreddits about him in the last few days alone." There hasn't been much activity on the threads, just people talking ghost stories at each other, but Tony's right about one thing - sooner or later, Bucky will become a problem.

The other eyebrow lifts. "Captain America's on Reddit," Skye breathes.

Steve sighs, inwardly. "I need to ask a favor," he says. He puts on the Captain America face as he says it, looking each of them in the eyes in turn. They both straighten, unconsciously. "I can't have information about the Winter Soldier getting out into the general media. I want the dossier on his missions, but I can't have this person or anyone else believing that their theories are valid. Is this something you can help me with?"

"Of course," Coulson says quickly. 

"Definitely," Skye says, but she looks a little doubtful when she says it. "But why not? Shouldn't people know that he's out there? I mean, I don't know how much you've found out already, but everything I've ever heard says he's _super bad_. Like, the baddest of the bad. He makes _serial killers_ look cute and cuddly. If he manages to escape or if HYDRA breaks him out from wherever you've got him locked up, do you really want him to be able to hide because no one thinks he's real?"

Yes, Steve thinks. What he says out loud is, "he's not a bad guy."

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Skye says, "what with all the murdering."

Steve shakes his head. "HYDRA made him into that," he says, looking away. "He's not a monster."

Skye looks to Coulson, an uncertain smile on her face. Coulson's looking at Steve, frowning. "What, is this dude a friend of yours or something?" Skye asks. 

Steve looks up at them, chin still lowered. His hands are folded in front of him and it's an effort not to clench them into fists. He's looking right at Coulson when the penny drops for the other man. 

"Oh my God," Coulson says, and abruptly staggers backwards a step, eyes wide. "He seemed so familiar - oh my God, is that really possible? How?"

He answers his own question before Steve can decide what to say. "His unit was captured in '43," Coulson says slowly, almost to himself. His face has gone pale and shocky looking. "He was experimented on by Arnim Zola. He survived the fall?"

Skye's head whips back and forth between the two of them. "Wait, I'm sorry," she says. "Are you saying what I think you're saying? Because what you're saying sounds crazy."

"Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier," Coulson says, and gropes for the chair behind himself, almost collapsing into it. He looks like the world's been brought down around his ears and for a hot, vicious moment Steve is glad to see it.

 

 

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long since he's felt hope that for a second he can't even put a name to it. There'd been a lot of other photos to look at, in Renke's files. HYDRA had done everything they could think of to find the limits of Bucky Barnes, and they'd _failed_.
> 
> “God, Buck," Steve whispers, his eyes squeezed tight. “I missed you so much. You got no idea.”
> 
> And Bucky says, "I loved you. I was so in love with you.”

-

 

Agent Triplett drives Steve's cargo into the city, following Steve on the bike. They talk through the comms the whole way, mostly about Dernier and Triplett's memories of him from childhood. Dernier had taught Steve French over the course of a few long weeks in 1944. It had been Bucky's irritated suggestion, tired of Steve nagging him to talk strategy and plan their next steps when the SSR was so full of hurry up and wait. Steve had taken to it like a natural, his vocabulary growing in leaps and bounds and it had been _amazing_ , like he could feel the inside of his head expanding, like whatever they'd done to his body had been done to his brain too. Dernier had been overjoyed to have another person to talk to, and he and Steve and Gabe had spent hours under the stars or on cargo planes or under a blind playing vocabulary games and telling dirty jokes.

He tells Triplett about Bucky. He hadn't meant to, had asked Coulson and Skye to be discreet with the information, but Triplett is an easy man to talk to and Steve's starting to get used to talking. Triplett's silent for a long time, afterwards. "That's tough," he says, finally. "I lost my partner to HYDRA. Turned out my CO was the one responsible. It's like they can get inside your head, man. Find out exactly where it would hurt the most."

"I'm sorry," Steve tells him. 

"Thanks, man," Triplett says. "I'm sorry about Barnes, too. That's a damn shame, something like that happening to someone like him."

"Yep," Steve says, and changes lanes to get around a big truck, waits for Triplett to follow. It's a nice day for the ride, cool and green. It's early still, closer to dawn than real daylight, and the roads are pretty empty. 

"It's been real hard, these last few months," Triplett says, "No more SHIELD bankroll... No more techs or analysts, no more backup, no more diplomatic connections ... It's a whole different game. Near as we can figure, there's still dozens of active HYDRA cells and we can't do a damn thing about it. Between the lack of resources and the government calling us all terrorists and Nazis, we can't do much about anything. You wanna hear something crazy? We were so hard up, we took down some of the bad guys with my grandpa's old _Howling Commando kit_."

The story behind that takes them all the way through the Bronx. 

Two of Tony's robots are waiting for them in the garage, a mail bin between them. Triplett and Steve unload the van into the bin and the robots disappear with it, one robot throwing an awkward mock salute in Steve's direction as the freight elevator closes. 

"It's been a pleasure, sir," Triplett says, and they shake hands. "You live up to the legend."

"I don't think anyone could do that," Steve says, and then on impulse offers, "If your resources are that thin - let me know if you need any work done, in New York. I need to stay in the area for Bucky, but - I'm available."

Triplett sucks in a breath, eyebrows raised. "Thank you, sir," is all he says. "I'll let Director Coulson know."

The apartment is quiet. Bucky's in his room. Steve doesn't open the door, just stands outside for a long moment, listening to the soft sounds of his sleep. Bucky asleep is almost noiseless, has been ever since they were kids, so it's only an _inhale, exhale_ Steve's pretty sure most people wouldn't be able to hear. 

Steve changes into a tee shirt and sweatpants, goes to lay down for a while. Between the flight and the date changes he's not sure when he slept last. The ceiling is white and smooth above him, the room itself almost uncomfortably large. Back in Brooklyn he and Buck had shared a single bedroom in a tiny apartment near Fort Greene Park, in a building that was torn down in the 80's to make room for a hospital. They'd named a wing after Captain America, to memorialize the last home he'd ever had - it seemed a little morbid, but he'd said thank you when someone showed him the plaque.

He falls asleep quickly, and wakes up only an hour later on the floor next to his bed with a scream climbing out of his throat. So much for that. 

He throws on a jacket and sneakers and grabs his gym bag. There's a neglected gym on the twelfth floor that no one except Steve goes to, or at least that was true until some of Stark's employees realized Captain America was using it. He's pretty sure Tony would set up a private area if he asked, but camping out at Stark Tower until Bucky's better is debt enough. He can put up with the gawkers until then.

He's only a few steps out of his room when a hand grabs the shoulder of his jacket and throws him back against the wall.

"Where did you go," Bucky hisses into his face. Steve drops the gym bag at their feet, leaving his hands free. It's been a few weeks since the last incident but Bucky looks pretty mad, lips pulled back from his teeth, face flushed and blotchy. 

He hadn't heard Bucky approach. He usually doesn't. "I was," Steve says, hesitantly, "Buck, we talked about this, I went to Ukraine." 

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, and then pulls back a few inches. He still looks angry, but his shoulders drop. Steve relaxes a little. 

"Did something happen?" Steve asks. "Buck, are you okay?"

"Nothing happened," Buck says, irritated. "You were gone, I didn't like it."

And Steve - he can't help it, the quick burst of warmth all over, that Bucky _missed him_. That Bucky's here to miss anybody, let alone Steve. It doesn't even fade as Bucky snarls at him and shoves him back up against the wall, but he tries to school his expression to something neutral. Palms up and open. Bucky's knuckles bump up against his chest and Bucky lets go like he was burned. 

Steve half expects him to turn around and vanish, point made, but instead Bucky just stands there, still right up against Steve, staring at Steve's raised hands with wide, wary eyes. Steve waits for long, tense seconds. Bucky's head shifts, just a little to the right, still staring. 

"Buck," Steve says, soft. He's ready to follow it up with a smile and _you're gonna give a guy a complex_ , but Bucky's eyes flicker back up to Steve's face.

"We used to touch," he says.

Steve frowns, thrown clean off the bus. "Yeah," he says slowly, trying to figure out where this is going. Bucky hasn't touched anyone except to attack them since - since he allowed Bruce to take blood samples, a few weeks back. He doesn't have a lot of questions for Steve about the way they used to be. He doesn't seem to have any questions at all. "I mean, yeah, of course - we lived out of each other's pockets half the time -"

He stops. There's a look on Bucky's face, shifting like quicksand, his mouth slack, like maybe he's asking for something. Steve can smell mint and cigarettes on his breath, the soap smell of clean skin, and under that the warm smell of him, of every home Steve has ever had.

Steve lifts a hand, slow and cautious, and Bucky's eyes flicker closed just before Steve touches him, a look of relief spreading over his face. He'd reached towards Bucky's shoulder, intending a hand around the nape of Bucky's neck or something, but his fingers brush Bucky's cheek first, the side of his throat. 

Abruptly the whole world has become the warmth of Bucky's skin and the relaxed shape of his mouth, the cool weight of his hair on Steve's fingertips. He tilts into Steve's touch like a cat, pushing into it, and actually _smiles_ when Steve brings his other hand up to frame Bucky's face.

He hasn't seen that smile since 1945 and something in his chest gives way like a landslide. 

He flinches when two hands slide under his shirt, but they just wrap over his hips and stay there, one warm and one cool and smooth, thumbs kneading little circles just over his hip bones. And it's - 

God, it's -

He smooths both hands down towards Bucky's shoulders, his chest. Still moving slowly, though less out of fear and more - curiosity. He knows Bucky's body better than he knows his own, knew it better even before Erskine and Howard's Vita-Rays made him a stranger to himself. He had decades to see every change that childhood, puberty, adulthood and war brought to Bucky. The only thing he knows about this body now is what he's seen in black and white photos, the catalog of nineteen years of torture. Such a small amount of time, compared to the rest of it.

Bucky is bigger, bulkier in the shoulders than he used to be. His chest is hard and muscled in the same way Steve's is. The scars around Bucky's shoulder are deep and pitted, smooth little divots under his hand. He keeps his eyes on Bucky's face as he traces around and then onto the metal arm itself, drawing a hand up and down Bucky's other arm at the same time, over and over. Slow. Soft. The curve of muscle is the same in each hand. The soft inside of Bucky's elbow is warm and alive in his left hand. His right hand finds tiny ridges in each direction that shift minutely underneath his fingertips. He can feel the faintest electric buzz, from whatever's underneath the plating.

He feels Buck spread the fingers of both hands to slide over and up Steve's stomach, the warm and cool touch of his palms dizzying, the motion just as slow and hypnotized as Steve's hands on him. 

They're both looking down blindly, into the space between them. Bucky's breathing is slow and thick, his heartbeat a rattle in Steve's ears. One hand, the right, the warm one, slips back and around Steve's waist, digging sharp hot points of _touch_ into the small of Steve's back, and pulls their hips together.

Bucky's _hard_ and it shocks him, the feel of Bucky's dick up against his thigh and he jerks back without thinking about it, his shoulders bumping back against the wall. Bucky's eyes snap open, his hands still underneath Steve's shirt, Steve's hands wrapped around Bucky's elbows, both of them frozen.

He shouldn't be surprised, but he _is_ \- as if what they'd been doing is how he acts with any of his other friends. Belatedly, Steve realizes that he's hard too, achingly, painfully so - his whole body wired and straining towards Bucky's touch.

"What are we doing?" Steve whispers. Bucky is - 

\- looking up at Steve, his eyes drowsy but _present_ , and he says, "Steve, _please_."

"Are you," Steve says, voice cracking, "are you sure?"

Bucky just stares at him. His left hand loose and cool, stroking softly up and down Steve's side. Waiting for Steve to say okay.

They used to do this, sometimes. Fool around, like kids do when they get curious about their bodies. Only every once in a while, no rhyme or reason for stopping or starting. He remembers this, this moment, each time it started up again, the patient look on Buck's face as he waited for Steve to say yes or no. 

Bucky's chest bumps against Steve's. They've drawn closer together, or maybe Steve drew Bucky in against himself. He feels too aware of the line of Bucky's body, the heat coming off him. How easy it would be to pull Bucky up against him, knees to shoulders.

"Bucky," Steve says softly. Bucky tilts his chin up to be kissed and God help him, Steve does it.

He shoves Bucky away, follows him forward until Buck's pinned up against the other wall with the full length of Steve's body. Bucky's mouth on his own is wet and hungry, both of his hands gripping Steve's hair, hard enough to hurt. Steve's shirt is rucked up around his armpits and he yanks Bucky's tank off over his head, needing to feel skin. He kicks Bucky's feet wider, crowds into him -

Contact is like an electric shock. They still, panting into each other's mouth. Bucky's stomach is hot against his own. The cool grip of his left hand around the back of Steve's neck the only thing grounding him. He can't believe this is happening. 

He'd gone out a few times with the STRIKE team, to sit and nurse a beer in grimy dive bars or in glittery, thumping dance clubs, being sent to buy the drinks every round because only Captain America could get anywhere near the bar. He'd been grabbed and kissed a few times by girls he hadn't even seen before there were hands on his shoulders and soft bodies pressed up against his own. They'd wanted to tell him how sexy he'd looked fighting aliens, or that they used to watch his cartoon when they were little. It was like being on the USO tour again, except this time he never took anyone up on the offer. 

So the last time he'd had sex, it had been with Bucky, in the German Alps, Christmas morning, 1944. Three weeks since he'd seen Peggy and Bucky had offered to suck him off, to get him to _fuckin' calm down_ , for the love of God. It had been barely dawn and Dugan had been on watch, his heavy footsteps crunching around in the snow, achingly clear through the thin canvas of the tent Steve shared with Bucky.

Right in the middle of it they'd heard Dugan unzip his pants and start pissing on a tree a few yards away and they'd both cracked up, Bucky pulling off and resting his forehead on Steve's thigh, his hand still working Steve's wet dick, two knuckles jammed into his mouth to muffle his giggle fit.

 _Do you remember that?_ Steve wonders now, even as he tugs down Bucky's shorts and pulls his dick out, presses a thumb underneath the head the way he remembers Bucky used to like, the rest of his hand wrapped loosely around the shaft, starting to move. This part, at least, hasn't changed. Steve's bedroom door is open just a few yards away, but instead this how it's happening, in the hallway, Steve still in his jacket and gym shoes, Bucky's head thrown back and his eyes closed, pulling Steve's hair.

When Buck comes it's silently, the cords of his neck standing out, his eyes open, gasping for air. He slides down the wall and Steve folds down with him, and that's how it goes for Steve too, on his knees with his sweatpants pulled down just below his ass, cool metal fingers toying with his balls, Bucky's head on his shoulder as he strokes Steve all the way to the other side. 

It takes a long time to piece himself back together. He has his face pressed into Bucky's neck. There's metal underneath his cheek that shifts minutely against his skin. The vibration he felt earlier is gone now, or maybe he's shaking all over. He can't tell. He hasn't come like that in - he doesn't know. He has no idea. He can't believe that just happened.

His head's starting to clear, and what's creeping in is utter bewilderment. He can't believe that just _happened_. He just spent God only knows how many hours looking through Renke's files, learning exactly how Buck had been unmade, and this - 

Bucky pushes at his shoulder, interrupting his train of thought. Steve lifts his head, a little afraid of what he's going to see, but it's - it's just Bucky, looking relaxed and a little sweaty, a pleased curl around his mouth. He presses a kiss between Steve's eyebrows and gets to his feet, tugging his shorts the rest of the way off and leaving them in the hallway. He goes into Steve's room, where Steve hears him flop down onto the bed. After a second, Steve picks himself up and follows, helplessly.

He shucks his own clothing, finally, and lays down next to Bucky, who is naked on top of the covers. Buck throws an arm and a leg over him and Steve might as well be back in 1941, their little apartment near Fort Greene Park, Bucky getting handsy and sweet after fooling around. 

Curled into Bucky's side, Steve has an up close view down the hills and planes of his body. If one of Bucky's fingers is broken, it will take only a few hours to heal, but a break in an arm or leg can take up to a week. A second degree burn to his 20% of his torso will be gone in a few days, but the organ failure caused by anything more can take up to a month to fully repair itself, depending on what was damaged. Exsanguination is nearly impossible, which Renke was thrilled to discover after Bucky cut his own throat in 1946.

He turns his head to look, but Bucky's neck looks smooth and unmarked. You can't see the burn that had covered most of his left side in 1953, or where they'd shot him in the gut in 1947. He watches Bucky stretch out one foot and then the other, and his feet look just the same as they did in 1944, six years before the left one had been broken in nine places with the butt of a rifle.

Bucky's right hand has been wandering across his back, so soft that Steve hardly notices it until it digs a little circle with the thumb between his shoulder blade and spine. It startles him a little, but right on the heels of that is the memory of that absent touch on trains, on park benches, sitting on the stoop of the Barnes' home, taking away a little of the pain he used to carry around with him.

The hand stops, uncertain, and Steve looks up. “You used to do that for me a lot,” he tells Bucky quietly. He's stopped telling so many stories because it only seems to make Bucky angry or confused, but he can't help this one. Whether it's muscle memory or actual, Bucky _remembers_. “I had a pinched nerve right there from my scoliosis. It hurt, all the time. If we sat down anywhere long enough you’d just reach over and start rubbing at it. I think half the time you didn’t even know you were doing it.”

Bucky just looks at him, blankly, so Steve lays his head back down. After a second, Steve feels him start back up again, cautious, each little circle setting off sparks in Steve's chest. It's been so long since he's felt hope that for a second he can't even put a name to it. There'd been a lot of other photos to look at, in Renke's files. HYDRA had done everything they could think of to find the limits of Bucky Barnes, and they'd _failed_.

“God, Buck," Steve whispers, his eyes squeezed tight. “I missed you so much. You got no idea.”

And Bucky says, "I loved you. I was so in love with you.”

-

He and Sam go to see Peggy, the morning of the hearing. They have breakfast together in her little backyard, underneath the trees where the air is cool and smells nice. There's a housekeeper named Simon and a nurse named Estella who both live there full time. Simon has been there for six years; Estella about six months. Two of Peggy's grandchildren are coming over later, bringing Peggy's newest _great_ grandchild, and Simon is already cleaning.

Peggy looks beautiful in the morning light. It's easier now to see her than it used to be, when it still felt like his heart wanted to climb right out of his chest every time she looked at him. He's pretty sure he'll always be in love with her, at least a little, and he's positive she knows that. He's grateful she doesn't seem to hold it against him.

Sam and Peggy are carrying the conversation. They've been good about trying to include him, but Steve finds himself without much to say. All he wants is to watch the two of them talking. They hadn't met before, which had gotten Steve a sound scolding from each of them, but they get on like a house on fire. He's so _happy_ to see them together. He's so lucky to know both of them. He could sit here for hours and just listen to them laugh.

It's a pretty good day for Peggy, who has asked Sam twice what he does for a living but spoke knowledgeably about the state of veteran's services in DC and the woeful understaffing faced after the collapse of SHIELD. She drinks an enormous amount of coffee and rests a hand over Steve's on the table as she talks to Sam. Sometimes he thinks he'd still marry her, if she'd have him. 

_I was so in love with you._ Bucky hasn't brought it up again but what he said has been rattling around Steve's ears ever since. He's hardly been out of _bed_ ever since, the two of them sucking and fucking like they're 15 again, as often as they can. The morning that Steve left for DC he fucked Bucky up the ass for the first time since 1941. They hadn't done it like that too often, before, since Steve used to have poor circulation and didn't always get hard enough to make it worth the effort, and Bucky didn't like it too much the other way around. They'd done it again in the shower right after, when they were meant to be cleaning up, and Steve's skin had been buzzing the whole ride down. 

It's - _good_. Strange, but good. He hadn't wanted to tell Sam about it, to admit he's been so lonely that he'd given into that part of himself again. Trying to describe what it was like between him and Buck, to frame it in a way he thought a modern person might understand, had been profoundly uncomfortable. He'd said that ridiculous word - _gayborhood_ \- last night, when all he'd wanted to do was explain how maybe that kind of friendship just hadn't survived the era.

He has no idea what's in Bucky's head, why he'd say something like that. Buck seems genuinely calmer and more present than he was before they started this back up again, but is still prone to blinding, terrifying rages that come out of nowhere and leave just as quickly. Steve figures he's got a lot to be angry about - he just wishes there was some way to help.

"I adore your young man," Peggy tells him, when Sam excuses himself to answer a phone call. Her hand feels soft and small on his own. 

"He's pretty amazing," Steve says, because it's true. Sam hadn't said anything to Peggy about taking on a bigger role as - part of whatever sort of group the Avengers might have become, given the opportunity, or being a big damn hero all by himself. There's a lot of logistics to work out first before he can let the world know, Steve guesses. Sam'll be coming up to New York in a few weeks for fitting and testing of the new wings, and after that - who knows. Privately Steve is hoping Sam will move to New York, or if that doesn't happen maybe Bucky will want to live in DC.

Peggy just looks at him for a long moment, smiling. He lets her look, enjoying the sunshine on his face and the sound of the birds in the trees around them. It's nice to be with her.

"When will you bring Barnes to visit?" she asks. "I'd very much like to see him."

Steve looks down, to where she's still holding his hand. "When it's safer," he says. It feels like a betrayal to admit it, that Bucky isn't always safe to be around. That he might never be. Steve makes plans for what they'll do when Buck is better even though he has no idea what _better_ might look like. He's tried asking Bucky what he wants but just gets that fish-eye stare. "I'm sure he'd like to see you too."

Peggy looks skeptical, which is fair. She and Buck had had an adversarial sort of friendship, back during the war. Steve's pretty sure they had some territorial disputes concerning him, but they were both careful to keep any disagreements as far from his notice as possible.

He's wondered - it's occurred to him - 

Peggy isn't mentioned in any of the SHIELD materials related to the Winter Soldier. She would have known Bucky if she'd seen him, even as changed as he is. She would have done something to save him. 

But part of him, just a little, still wishes he could know for sure. 

"Are you ready to testify?" she asks. 

Steve shrugs. Sam rejoins them at the table, tucking his phone back into his pocket. "As I'll ever be, I guess."

"I still think grumpy old man complains about Nazis was a good plan," Sam says. "You don't have to stick your neck out for SHIELD if you don't want to."

"It's not as easy as that," Steve says, sighing. "You saw the news right now, it's a witch hunt out there. Hell, you see it every day. How many cases are you working on right now, to find ex-SHIELD agents new jobs or homes?"

"A lot," Sam admits. Peggy's eyes are far away. For a moment Steve's afraid she's gone somewhere else and they'll have to start the whole day over again, but she just sighs.

"I guess starting over is always more complicated than it seems," she says, wistfully. "I used to dream of just - burning the whole thing down, to be honest. Starting from about a month after Howard invited me to run it with him."

"What made you stick with it?" Sam asks.

She considers the question for a long moment, looking out over her garden. Her grandchildren keep it for her. At least one of them comes faithfully every week to look in on her and see if anything needs doing. Even the youngest one has a mortgage and a child. 

"We were doing good," she says at last. "Before everything SHIELD did became about compromise, we did good in the world." She looks over at Steve. "Do you think this new director, Coulson, will live up to that?"

No. Maybe. Maybe he shouldn't try.

"I don't know," Steve settles on. "Maybe if he doesn't start off compromising."

-

Steve is scheduled for the same room that Natasha testified in, the place too small for all the reporters and photographers and curiosity seekers that have packed in to see Captain America speak publicly for the first time since 1944. He's dressed in a suit and tie today, but with the way people are looking at him, he sorta wonders if he should have taken Tony's advice and just worn the uniform.

It's hard to focus on the panel. The gallery is full of people talking to each other, into their cell phones, clicking photos, tapping onto their devices, a buzz of noise that crawls up under his skin. He used to feel like this sometimes during the war, wondering if the noise of the battle was as loud and overwhelming for everyone else.

The Brigadier General from the news is there, the one apparently out for the blood of anyone still loyal to SHIELD. He's sitting in on the panel, of course - at the edge of the table reading through his papers, looking very serious. Hearing him talk on television, Steve had been reminded a little of Colonel Phillips - that no nonsense, purposeful sort of soldier he'd looked up to, back before he'd ever met one. The other people on the panel also look very serious. They're all older white men - the kind of politicians he used to see at SHIELD sometimes, who would come and shake his hand and tell him their father had fought in his war, and then stand up to the room at large and say something abhorrent. 

He squares his shoulders, ready for whatever they're about to throw at him.

It doesn't take him long to realize he probably shouldn't have worried. They're not here to ask him real questions. They're here to see Captain America. 

"Captain Rogers," the Speaker of the House starts off, once Steve's been sworn in and the gallery quieted. Steve's seen him speak on CSPAN but never met him in person. He's not sure of the man's name. "Thank you so much for joining us today, it's an honor to have you."

 _I was subpoenaed, it's not like I had a choice._ "I'm happy to help, however I can," Steve says.

"We'll make this quick, I'm sure you're a very busy man," the Speaker says. Steve doesn't miss two members of the panel exchanging a glance. One rolls his eyes.

They take him through the days leading up to the Insight Helicarrier launch, starting with the 'murder' of Nick Fury in his apartment. Steve answers as briefly as possible: _Director Fury was immediately incapacitated. I pursued the shooter. I didn't get a real look at him._ He doesn't mention the arm, or how shockingly fast Bucky had ran, how he'd caught the shield and threw it back so hard Steve had still felt sore the next morning.

The Speaker and the other men on the panel interrupt him, constantly. They ask him about ops and people he's never heard of. They interrupt each other, too: the man who rolled his eyes (he's more military than politician but Steve doesn't know him, has never met him) reaches over with a pen and taps on the Speaker's notes, cutting him off in the middle of a question.

"Don't bother," the man says, "he was on ice for that one, he's not gonna know about it."

They gloss over HYDRA's attack on Roosevelt Bridge and focus in on Jasper Sitwell - what made Captain America suspect him, did he know about Sitwell's history with HYDRA, who else did Sitwell associate with who might be HYDRA? Had Sitwell given him any reason to be suspicious?

"I'm pretty sure that's still classified," Steve says, and half the panel laughs like he's made a joke. The other half look bored. Brigadier General Talbot looks angry.

"We need _some_ sort of actionable intelligence, Captain Rogers," Talbot says, impatiently. "Sitwell was a high level agent with extensive contacts here on the Beltway and in the diplomatic community. That we had HYDRA infiltrating such privileged positions is an intelligence failure on many levels. What _exactly_ made you suspect him?"

"Agent Sitwell was present during an operation that took place shortly before I was informed of Project Insight," Steve answers. "He was not a field agent -"

"Agent Sitwell had three years of field experience," the Speaker tells Steve, kindly. 

" - Agent Sitwell was not normally in the field when I knew him," Steve revises, biting the inside of his cheek, "so his presence was unusual. Information that had been gained during the operation led Agent Romanoff and I to believe that the nature of Project Insight was even worse than it had initially seemed. We went to Sitwell for more information."

One man asks, "At what point did your interrogation lead to throwing him into an oncoming semi?"

Steve takes a breath in and lets it out slowly. No good way to answer that question. He hadn't even seen when Sitwell was yanked out of Sam's car; it had all happened so fast. By the time he'd registered someone was on top of the car shooting at them, Natasha was on his lap, pulling Steve out of the way of Bucky's bullet. "HYDRA killed Agent Sitwell, to stop him from giving us any more information," he says, as evenly as he can.

Most of the room is glaring daggers at the man who asked him if he'd killed Sitwell. He can hear angry mutters behind him. He's noticed a strange belief since he got back, that Captain America doesn't kill people - as if he'd spent World War II posing with a shield instead of in the trenches like any other soldier, killing Nazis. 

On an op, it's an advantage like any other. No one expects Captain America to throw a grenade at them. No one expects Captain America to have a gun and use it to shoot them. Soldiers frown at him, vaguely confused, instead of going for their own guns, the moment of cognitive dissonance written clear on their faces: _but I ate breakfast cereal with this guy's face on the box._

Here, in the rest of the world - getting stared at on the subway, out for a run, getting coffee - he's Superman, straight out of the funnies.

Talbot leans back in his seat, sighing. He puts a hand over his microphone, but Steve hears every word he says to the man next to him, regardless. "This is pointless," Talbot says quietly. "This poor kid doesn't know about the kind of corruption SHIELD was involved with."

The other man shrugs. "What'd you expect? He's a mascot, a cheerleader. It's kind of his job not to know about the dirty stuff."

Talbot glances at Steve, briefly, and that's the worst of it: the look of genuine pity on the man's face. "They shoulda just left him in peace," Talbot says.

The bullet Natasha took in the shoulder was left off the record, although Hill's dramatic rescue is in. Steve admits to swiping his old uniform from the Smithsonian.

"That'll be a great headline," someone whispers, back behind him.

Steve leaves Bucky off of Charlie target entirely. The panel doesn't seem to notice, although he knows a single hostile on Charlie was noted in Hill's testimony. He had taken those hits on Alpha target. He was badly injured when he fell into the water. He swam to shore before becoming overwhelmed by his injuries.

"Really?" the Speaker asks, curiously. "How badly were you hurt? I didn't think anything short of the Hulk could take _you_ down."

There's a hush across the gallery, just a little, as everyone waits to hear his answer. "I," Steve says. He takes a sip of water. "I was shot four times, the last through my abdomen. I'd been stabbed. I fell at least sixty feet into the water."

The Speaker purses his lips, impressed. Everyone on the panel is nodding a little: _yes, that would kill a normal person_! Pens scratch behind him, writing down the quote. "Did you have to be hospitalized?" someone else on the panel asks. "Or do you just - walk it off?"

"I was hospitalized, yes," Steve says. "I was nearly killed, of course I was hospitalized."

Now he is breathing _in_. Now he is breathing _out_. 

"We're glad you're feeling better," Talbot says, after an awkward pause. "We have just a few more questions and then you'll be free to go. We'd like to hear more about other agents you suspected of being part of HYDRA."

Steve shakes his head. "We didn't know anyone else was HYDRA."

"Not even the STRIKE team?" Talbot asks. "By all accounts you worked very closely with them. You led them on -" he flips through the pages before him, "- eleven missions in the last nine months."

"I didn't know they were HYDRA," Steve says, because it's true. He had no idea. He still doesn't want to believe it. They weren't his team but they'd been getting there and he'd liked Rumlow, had liked him more than most everyone else at SHIELD. 

"What about - any agents through Special Services?" Talbot asks. "Did anyone give you a reason to be suspicious of them?"

"No," Steve says.

"Lab techs, analysts, field operatives? How about accounting?" Talbot asks, encouraging.

"No," Steve says.

Talbot sighs. "Captain Rogers, by all accounts HYDRA had a lot of resources and a lot of warm bodies behind them. Now, we're pretty confident that we've put 'em out of business, but we still have to make sure SHIELD's poison isn't spreading to any other intelligence agency or political body. I'm sure you understand where we're coming from on this, right?" 

He leans forward on the table when he talks, meeting Steve's eyes, as if that way Steve will know: _I'm on your side_. "You seem like you're pretty good at spotting these snakes, so you oughta be able to give us _something_."

"Or at least a good reason why not," someone else says, darkly. "You worked with these people for two years, how could you have not _known_?"

He's been asking himself that for months. "I'm sorry," Steve says, "if you've already got it figured out what I did or didn't know, I'm not sure what you still need me here for."

"Are you saying you knew about HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD?" Talbot asks, flatly disbelieving, but the Speaker waves an absent hand in his direction.

"Captain, no one's accusing you of anything, least of all being affiliated with HYDRA," he says, with a little laugh. "For God's sake, you _died_ defending America from them."

Steve flinches - just faintest twitch, almost unnoticeable. "There were a lot of good people at the Triskelion who were killed doing exactly that," he says, his hands clenching under the table. "If you're looking to make them out to be traitors you can count me right in there with 'em."

The panel laughs - like he's made a joke.

When he's finally dismissed, he finds a security detail from Tony waiting for him just outside the gallery. The two men look big and official and ex-Special Forces. The building is swarming with reporters and cameras, but a path has already been cleared out the back. A car is waiting, sir. 

The car is big and black and idling at the end of an alleyway hiding a discrete service entrance. It's not completely empty. There's a girl standing a few steps into the alley, smoking a cigarette, taking clear refuge from the mob scene out front. She turns when the door opens, and there's a second of surprised eye contact before she blurts out, "Holy shit, Captain America!"

He gives her a tight smile and moves towards the car. She doesn't take the hint and runs a few steps forward, until she hits an immovable wall of ex-Special Forces. 

"Captain Rogers!" she yells between their shoulders, undaunted. The rest comes out in a rush, making the most of the few seconds she has before Steve gets into the car. "Sorry to bother you but I'm a writer for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and we'd love to have you on as a guest and I can promise we won't treat you like a circus animal!"

Steve pauses. The security detail pauses. They step aside when Steve nods to them. The girl slips through the crack, looking like she can't believe her own luck. "I work for the Daily Show," she says, a little breathless. She's about the same height and build Steve used to be, which means she has to crane her neck pretty far to look him in the face. 

"Yeah, you said," Steve tells her, and she blushes, still grinning.

"I'm Julie," she says, and they shake hands. "That was kind of a shit show in there."

"Yeah," Steve says, looking out towards the mouth of the alley. "So you guys would do better, huh?"

Back in the car, her business card in his pocket, one of the guards says, "The Daily Show is a -"

"I know," Steve says. "I watch it."

-

The thing is, he's read most all of the books that have been written about Captain America. At first he was desperate to understand why people were so strange about him, why it felt like the whole world was staring at him, waiting for him to do something amazing. Before the Chitauri invasion, no one had told him that a generation of Americans had grown up watching Captain America cartoons on Saturday morning. No one had said that the stupid propaganda reels he shot with the USO, and later with the Commandos, would be dissected by scores of academics for cultural meaning, that every part of his life and death already had a book written about it. No one had told him what kind of symbol Captain America had become, because the answer was too complicated, and had changed every decade or so anyway. 

Later, he'd found books that theorized what had been done to his body. That maybe it had been stem cells triggering massive growth. That growth hormones made his organs more efficient and sped up his healing. That maybe it had been changes in the brain itself, triggering the rapid muscle and bone growth, increasing his intelligence, memory, spatial sense, everything that had made him valuable as a commander as well as a weapon. No one knew - they'd never found his body, and the results had never been duplicated.

He likes those the best - they read so impersonally, as if it's anybody's brain they're talking about. (It's different when he's asked: how fast can you run? What does it take to knock you out? Were you awake when the plane hit the ice?). The worst are the ones about his childhood and life growing up in Brooklyn, which are so compassionate, so tragic, so excruciatingly researched. He always comes out of them looking like a fucking saint. Everyone does: Bucky, his mother - even Bucky's folks and their other childhood friends aren't spared. His life is painted in sepia-toned, airbrushed perfection where no one had flaws or cockroaches or lived on the dole or had people offer them money to get sterilized for the good of the human race. 

Sometimes Steve thinks that it's these books that are the real problem, because all superheroes need a tragic backstory to make them more than human. He went into the ice as a soldier and woke up to find out that Captain America had eaten him whole, every little piece. He didn't own his story anymore: not the war, not Peggy, not Brooklyn and Bucky - not questions about what, _exactly_ , would kill him?

Captain America's life and death had been a lot larger than Steve Rogers' had been, so much more satisfying and digestible, and sometimes even Steve preferred it to the real thing. Captain America hadn't been terrified when he put the plane down into the ice, and he'd never wished they'd just left him there.

So the past few years he'd let it slide. Let other people call the shots. Let other people tell him the kind of person he was, because hey - maybe they knew better than he did, nowadays. He watched his life happen from outside himself for a long time, because it was easier that way than it was to struggle so hard against all the _expectation_. And now he's back where he started: in a costume, dismissed and underutilized. 

The funny part is, the last time he'd felt like this was in 1943. It had been raining and he'd just had rotten tomatoes thrown at him. He'd hardly felt so low and pointless in all his life. He had smelled Peggy's perfume before he'd noticed it was her standing there, looking at his sketchbook over his shoulder. Calling him out on the gift he was wasting. And then she'd thrown him a lifeline, accidentally - a reason to stand up and fight back. 

If the world found out about Bucky, what he's done, the things HYDRA made him do, God alone knew what would happen. He'd be thrown into prison for the rest of his life if he was lucky - if he wasn't extradited to some other country or executed outright. And to a lot of people, he'd deserve it. Bucky has done terrible things. He's murdered innocent people. 

So if Steve has any hope of saving him, when the time comes - Captain America needs to be a lot more than a cartoon people used to watch.

 

 

-


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam laughs, his head tipped back. It's a wonderful, full body sort of laugh and Steve grins at him, helplessly. "Awww, come on," he says, "how many people get to say they've swept Captain America off his feet?"
> 
> "Not many," Steve says, looking down off the edge of the roof, "and not usually so literally."
> 
> "Count of three," Sam says, and yanks them both off the rooftop before Steve even has time to nod.

-

  
  


They give him a little room to sit in by himself, with low couches and a big tray of bottled water and fruit.  There’s a TV set up so he can watch the show before it’s his turn to come out, if he wants.  

It’s quiet in the little room.  They let in the audience about twenty minutes ago and the sound of people shuffling around and finding their seats is a muffled roar underneath the music being pumped out on set.  He’d gone and checked it out earlier, while they were walking him through the agreements they’d made with Stark’s PR team - what Stewart was or wasn’t able to ask him about, the kind of jokes they’d be running.  It’s a lot smaller than it looks on TV, as is Stewart himself - although he still has a few inches on Steve Rogers, circa 1942.

It's strange, that it's so - removed and hushed in his little room.  He's not sure what he was expecting but maybe something like the USO shows had been, crammed into a little corner backstage, waiting awkwardly for the girls to finish their makeup so he could get his own put on, everyone rushing around covered in glitter and sequins.  Instead, it's just him and the hum of the A/C.  

They’ve got a warm up guy out there, cracking jokes, picking on audience members, telling them to be nice and loud when the show starts.  People are stomping in their seats, laughing and applauding like crazy.

This is something he can do.  Hell, this time at least no one’ll ask him to hold a baby, probably.  He can do this.  

The crowd goes nuts when the show starts and Stewart runs on set, just like they were supposed to.  "Welcome to the Daily Show!  I'm Jon Stewart and we have an amazing show for you guys tonight.  We are _literally_ making history, and when I say literally - I _do not_ mean that euphemistically.  Our guest tonight - we're actually gonna keep it a surprise until we bring him out here because I want to share with you guys how great _my_ week was, living under a super fun umbrella of suspense and anticipation of whether this was actually gonna happen.  Of course, you won't have to deal with the, uh, invasion of lawyers which reminds me, when are we due for another locust storm?"

Big laugh.  Some things never change, he guesses.

There's a soft tap on the door.  Maggie, one of the PA's, pokes her head in.  "Five minutes, Captain Rogers," she says.  

"Thank you," he manages.  His phone buzzes in his pocket.  Email and text, coming through almost simultaneously.  Ten comments today on r/coldwarghost.  And a text from Sam: _Watch the what now?  What did you do???_

They guide him to wait just off stage, Stewart in profile under very bright lights.  He's in the middle of the opening monologue, something about a gaffe made by a Republican, pretty standard stuff for the show.  In the middle of it, Stewart looks over to find Steve waiting in the wings for his cue.  Stewart winks at him, and Steve finds himself genuinely laughing.

He likes Stewart's patter.  The rhythm of it reminds him of the way people used to sound in New York, that quick-slow drawl.  He still hears it sometimes, but mostly New Yorkers sound a lot like Bucky does these days, flat and unaccented, just like the people on television.  

"So I don't get nervous very often, introducing the guests we have on the show," Stewart is saying.  "I've been doing this for many, many - wow it's a long time at this point - and we've gotten a lot of amazing people to come on here.  I gotta tell you guys, though - this is the first time we've ever had anyone on who actually made Colbert vomit with jealousy when he heard about it."

Pause to wink into the center camera.  "Eat your heart out, Stephen - tonight, we've got _Captain America!"_

And the crowd goes wild.  When he steps on stage everyone's on their feet, cheering and whistling.  It's a lot louder than he was expecting but he knows this part of it - the bashful smile, the little wave acknowledging the audience.  The purposeful spring in his step as he crosses the stage to shake Stewart's hand.  It's easier to fall back into it than he was expecting.  

Stewart has to wave the audience back into their seats.  "Captain Rogers, thank you for your service," Stewart says, as they quiet down.  "It is our genuine pleasure to have you here at the Daily Show, even though we aren't 100% sure why you chose us as your first televised interview since - actually, ever.  Was Oprah busy?"

"Thanks for having me on," Steve says.  "Actually, you guys were my first call.  I watch the show a lot, it's funny."

Stewart rocks back in his seat, swiveling to point at the camera at center stage.  "Do you hear that, Stephen," he hisses.  " _He likes us best._ "

He turns back to Steve, offers him a big grin.  "So let me also say, welcome back to New York!  I understand you relocated after the collapse of SHIELD and let me say, on behalf of all of us here in New York City - i _t's about damn time_."

Steve laughs.  It comes out sounding pretty real.  "It was, it was time to come home."  

He'd jumped at the first chance to leave New York; before Bucky, he hadn't even been in the state for more than a year.  He hates being back now, no matter how easy it would be to disappear into Stark's tower and pretend he isn't.  The thing that no one seems to realize, when they ask him how _crazy_ it must be, to see the city so changed from what he knew, is that it isn't: the buildings are all the same, just covered in new signs, filled with new people.  He can still see the skeleton of the home he never got to come back to, just underneath it all.

If Bucky hadn't surfaced in New York, Steve would be wherever he was, no question about it.  And maybe when Bucky's _better_ -

"So are you planning on moving back to Brooklyn?" Stewart asks.  "Go live in Williamsburg with all the cool kids?"

"Williamsburg?" Steve repeats.  "Jon, get with the times - Williamsburg is dead."

Stewart cracks up hard at that, giggling into his fist.  The audience loves it too.  Steve beams out towards the camera.  "Really, I'm taking my time, figuring out the next step.  I have a friend who lives in Bed-Stuy, which I lived in for a few years as a kid - but then I think about living off the G train, you know?"  He spreads his hands wide, shrugs.  "That's a Hell of a commute if the next alien attack is in Midtown again."

Stewart nods thoughtfully, still laughing - trying to get himself under control.  "You know, I hear Spider-Man's been seen a few times riding the top of the 7 in Queens - that's a solid hour, hour and a half into the city.  Gotta factor that into hero time, I'm sure."

"Think of all those transfers," Steve says, seriously.  "I'd end up having TMZ take my picture at 3 in the morning waiting at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, still covered in alien blood."

"Captain America's Walk of Shame!" Stewart says, spreading his hands like he can see it on the marquee.  Big laugh from the crowd, a lot of smiles.  More New Yorkers than anything else in the crowd tonight and they're smiling, nodding.  Even back in Steve's day people loved nothing more than complaining about the trains.

"So SHIELD," Stewart says, getting down to business.  "You work with them for years, protecting and serving, and suddenly you find out they're actually a Nazi cult bent on world domination - just in time to save the world from the most efficient drone program that's ever been invented.  It's - like a movie or something."

"Story of my life," Steve says, and cocks a smile to the crowd.  "Although I do wanna say, SHIELD was a pretty massive organization and most people who worked there were not Nazis.  Just - enough of them to poison the well."

"How many Nazis are too many Nazis," Stewart muses.

"One, I'd imagine," Steve says.  Big laughter from the audience.

"I hear that HYDRA actually self-identifies as ... _not_ -Nazis," Stewart says thoughtfully.  "That it's insulting for them, to be accused of being Nazis.  Although it _really_ doesn't seem like much of an improvement, if you ask me."

"They tried to wipe out the Eastern seaboard twice, but don't call them racist," Steve agrees.

They break, for a second interview segment for the website.  He and Stewart remain in their seats as the cameras are reset and makeup is refreshed.  

"How're you doing?" Stewart asks.

"Good," Steve says, and says it again, because it's true.  "Good."

"We're thrilled to have you," Stewart says.  "Honestly.  Even apart from the buzz the show's about to get, we're honored to have you.  Whatever reasons you had coming on here, we're glad to be a part of it."

"Thanks, Jon," Steve says, eyes flickering out over the crowd. "I appreciate that."

  
  


-

  
  


The apartment's quiet, when Steve gets back.  It always is.  Bucky doesn't watch TV or movies.  Steve's seen him using the tablet, quietly and competently, but he's never asked Bucky what he's doing on it.  Bucky reads, sometimes, but he never makes much noise unless he’s angry.  There are socks on the table, sleeping pants crumpled in the hallway.  The remains of breakfast barely visible in the living room.  He remembers Bucky being the tidy one, always telling Steve to pick up after himself in their little apartment.  Steve really only learned to be clean in DC, when any mess he left around just reminded him that there was no one else there who could have left it: that he was alone.  

Sometimes it doesn't feel too different these days, and in that he doesn't mind when Bucky does shit like leave his socks where Steve eats.  

There's a soft noise, from deeper in the apartment.  Steve shakes himself, realizing belatedly he's been staring at Bucky's socks like a lovesick puppy.  The noise happens again, something -

Breathy.  Just an exhale.  But loud enough that he's supposed to hear it.

Everything that Bucky does is - deliberate.  Purposeful.  Even when Steve doesn't understand the why he can see the intention telegraphed in the way Bucky moves, the tilt of his head.  He takes another look at the pants in the hallway, and shakes his head, a little smile curling around his mouth.

Steve nudges open the door to his bedroom, leans against the frame casually, crossing one ankle over the other.  “Hey Buck,” he says.  “Couldn’t wait, huh?”

Bucky grins at him, feral.  He’s naked, propped up a little on the pillows, one foot flat on the bed and the other leg kicked out long and loose.  His breathing is loud and ragged in Steve’s ears; the motion of his hand on his dick mesmerizing.

Steve draws closer, sits down at the edge of the bed.  Draws a hand up the inside of Bucky’s ankle, his calf, strokes the back of his hand up Bucky’s thigh.  He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, boring into him.  He wore a suit and tie to the taping and he feels strangled by it.

He thinks - he can hardly remember anymore, could hardly remember even back then - that this was how it all started, as kids.  Daring each other in half steps.  You can watch me do it.  You can touch it.  You can kiss it.  No clue who thought of it first, each of them taking turns to push it to the next level, the next dirty act.

He sets a kiss to the inside of Bucky's knee, rests his cheek there.  His hand lays flat on Bucky's stomach, feeling the muscles in Bucky's belly as his hips flex, the soft way his skin folds.  He reaches with the other hand across Bucky to grab the bottle of lube already on the bed, careless if Bucky ever did anything carelessly.  

He drizzles a few drops onto Bucky's hand, encouraging.  Bucky's eyes crease as he works the lube over his dick.  Some of it drips down into his pubes, onto the bed underneath him.  He spreads his legs a little wider, making room as Steve puts two slicked fingers up against his hole, tracing soft little circles.  

He can remember the first time they ever did this, in the empty apartment at the top of the Barnes' home, while the rest of the family was out somewhere.  Bucky had laughed almost all the way through it from sheer nerves, hiding his face in his hands as Steve fingered him, his whole body taut, blushing so red Steve was half afraid he'd have a coronary.  He'd told Steve he'd done it to himself before but even at the time Steve wasn't sure that was true.  But he'd liked it.  God, how he'd liked it.

Bucky hides his face under his arm when Steve pushes both fingers in, his other hand faltering on his dick.  Steve's got his other hand on Bucky's hip and he squeezes a little, checking in.  Bucky nods, faintly, without uncovering his face.  His mouth is slack and open, chin tipped back.  He used to make noise, even just to whisper how good it felt, don't stop, please, Steve, don't stop.  

Steve starts to move, slow at first, finding a rhythm.  Bucky exhales long and low, the end of his breath more of a whine than anything else, his hand matching Steve's pace.  Steve can feel Bucky's leg trembling underneath his cheek.  His body feels huge and strange, perched at the edge of the bed, untouched until he pulls his hand away from Bucky's hip and palms it over his own dick.  The cuff of his sleeve brushes up against the inside of Bucky's thighs, sweat and lubricant darkening the edge.  He breathes in the good smells of Bucky: cigarettes and sex.  

Bucky slows when Steve slows, jerks himself faster when Steve fucks him harder, utterly turned over to rhythm Steve's giving him.   _What do you need_ , Steve wants to ask, but by now he knows he won't get an answer.  He shifts over, gets more fully between Buck's knees, nuzzles down the inside of his thigh.  His fingers keep up the pace, punishing now, fucking hard and deep the way that Bucky used to beg him for in words and now begs for in the clutch of metal fingers over his own face, his whole body shaking and arching under Steve's hands.

"When you come, I want you to do it on my face," Steve says, whispering it into Bucky's thigh.  Bucky gasps, just a quick inhale and then metal fingers are scrabbling into Steve's hair, yanking him closer in, so close that Steve could almost stick his tongue out and lick the tip of Bucky's dick, and -

Eyes closed, it feels like it gets _everywhere_.  On his mouth, down the front of his jacket, in the corner of his eye.  He fumbles his pants open one handed, his fingers still working in Bucky's ass, his whole body lit up.  He can feel Bucky's hands come up onto his hips but without being able to see he feels surrounded by him.  Can't get a hand on his dick soon enough, can't get off quick enough, chasing orgasm until he tips right over the edge of it, shooting off all over Bucky and the bed and probably himself for all he cares right now.  

A moment of darkness and quiet, trying to catch his breath, his hips jerking up with the aftershocks.  He feels wiped clean.  Warm fingers brush over his cheekbone and wipe at the jizz he's got near his eye.  "Hold on," Bucky tells him.  "Don't open your eyes yet."

He feels the bed shift as Bucky crawls off of it, and then - nothing.  He's blind and vulnerable: dick still hanging out of his pants, hands open and empty in his lap.  He can't hear anything - not the tap running or Bucky's steady _inhale, exhale_.  Bucky could have left the apartment entirely, for all Steve can tell.

It feels like it's been a year since he closed the apartment door behind himself, a decade since the taping.  He's half dressed in his own bed, covered in sweat and jizz and lube.  He can only imagine what the world would think, seeing Captain America like this.  The thought of it is mortifying - and a little gratifying.

Now he is breathing in.  Slow.  Easy.

Now he is breathing out.  Patient.  Calm.

He feels cold fingers on his shoulder without hearing Bucky come back, then a warm, wet cloth against his face.  He leans into the touch, hands still relaxed and open on his knees, and breathes deep.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


A week later Steve is standing on the wide, arcing balcony of Tony Stark's penthouse suite, his toes an inch or so from a long, long fall.

"You are stressing me out, Cap," Sam says without looking up from where he's fiddling with the straps of the new harness.  Tony is doing slow circles around him, hands folded over his chest, Steve not even a blip on his radar.  

"It's fine," Steve says, balancing up on his toes.  "If I slip, you'll catch me."

"You make me feel like your mother," Sam complains, but he steps up to the little ledge where Steve is, trailing Tony like a baby duckling.  

"You look great," Steve says.  "But do you really think that uniform's tight enough?"

"Don't be jealous, flat butt," Sam says, gently.  

"You're perfect," Tony tells Sam, very seriously.  "You are as amazing a piece of Stark Industries product placement as my suit was.  Maybe even better because Rogers is right, your ass looks like it's computer generated.  Are you sure I can't put branding on the jumpsuit?  I'll pay you - _so much money_ if I can put branding on the jumpsuit."

"Tony, we don't make weapons anymore," Pepper calls from her seat in the little group of lounge chairs.

"Yes, correct," Tony says, and visibly reorients.   "Well, your flight plan is filed with all relevant authorities, so very little chance of anyone thinking you're a terrorist or something."

"That's not my usual profile," Sam says, slipping the goggles on.  

"Awkward," Tony says.  "Anyway, there might be a little coming out party later tonight, some press, some cameras, all very tasteful, because at least some people are capable of utilizing my PR behemoth like a grownup."

"You ever gonna let that go?" Steve asks, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Tony, strangely, looks down at the ground - and then the corner of his mouth quirks up, like he can't help himself.  "I've forgiven worse," he says.  "But the next time you wanna go on TV will you do me the courtesy of letting someone who works here know about it?"

"Sam and I are going on Anderson Cooper this week," Steve tells him, and both Sam and Tony squawk.

"When were you gonna tell _me_ this?" Sam asks, outraged.  

"What, does that mean you don't wanna do it?"

"Did I say I didn't wanna do it?"

"Well then," Steve says, looking out over the city, "what's the problem?"

Sam shakes his head, and he and Tony share a look.  It's funny - Steve wouldn't have thought they knew each other very well.

After a final check over, Tony retreats a few yards, linking arms with Pepper when she comes to stand with him.  "This is a moment," Steve can hear him say to Pepper, quietly.  "Yeah?"

"You're good," she says.  "It's a good moment."

Sam takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.  With the goggles on he's inscrutable, but Steve can feel the energy pouring off him.  "You ready to do this?" he asks.

Sam flashes him a huge, brilliant grin.  " _Always_ ," he says.

"Now don't get fresh with me, Wilson," Steve says, winding an arm around Sam's waist, his other hand gripping the handle at the bottom of the wing pack.  Sam puts an arm around Steve's waist in turn, his hand winding into the uniform belt.  They're pressed together from shoulders to hips, Steve curled into Sam's side like a dame on the cover of a pulp novel.  

Sam laughs, his head tipped back.  It's a wonderful, full body sort of laugh and Steve grins at him, helplessly.  "Awww, come on," he says, "how many people get to say they've swept Captain America off his feet?"

"Not many," Steve says, looking down off the edge of the roof, "and not usually so literally."

"Count of three," Sam says, and yanks them both off the rooftop before Steve even has time to nod.

The ground rushes to meet them and this is the part he knows, but then Sam snaps them out of free fall and peels up Park Ave, hundreds of feet above the city streets, pinwheeling so the world becomes a kaleidoscope of color: the blue of the sky, yellow cabs, Rockefeller towering over everything even avenues away, the spires of Saint Patrick's just visible until Sam pulls them up, up and up, and Steve can see _everything_.

It's amazing.  It's so amazing.  Over the rush of the wind he can hear Sam laughing, bright and joyful. "Let's buzz the Rock!" Steve shouts, and Sam banks hard to the left.  The tourists start jumping and waving when they're spotted, and Steve waves back, grinning ear to ear.

Later, they land on top of the Brooklyn Bridge to rest.  It feels like the whole world is spread out under their feet.  Steve remembers when the East River was busy with ships, the way the water used to smell.  He and Bucky used to come down to watch the stevedores when they were kids and lived not too far away.  Buck always thought they'd see exotic Oriental treasures come off the ships, or beautiful and exotic Oriental women disembark, his worldview pretty solidly formed at that age by pulp magazines.  They used to sit for hours, Bucky telling him stories about all the mystical, precious cargo being unloaded.  

"It's beautiful," Sam says, echoing Steve's thoughts.  The sun is starting to set and Brooklyn is gold in the light, Manhattan glittering and unreal, Lady Liberty in between, cars and people passing under their feet.

"Best city in the world," Steve says, and then, "thanks for this, Sam."

Sam huffs a laugh.  "Told you it'd be awesome."

"It's the first time I've actually been glad to be back in New York," Steve says.  It's true.  He feels Sam shift, but he keeps his eye out on the horizon, staring at the Lady far off in the distance.  His whole body is buzzing.  Maybe they really could live here, him and Buck - have a life again.  

"Stark offered me a job," Sam says, eventually.

"I figured he would," Steve says.  "You gonna take it?"

Sam's silent for a long moment.  "The idea of going private sector is weird," he says.  "Are we still helping people if we're getting paid to do it?"

"You got paid in the Army," Steve says, laughing.

"Yeah, but -"  Sam sighs.  "You know what I mean.  It would be practical to take it - I've never made half the money he offered, and the benefits package is _unreal_.  The health insurance alone would make it a great decision, plus he's offering me a spot in the Avengers clubhouse or whatever he wants to call it - rent free."

"But?" Steve asks.

Sam looks away, towards Manhattan, Stark Tower clear and looming even at this distance.  "I knew I wouldn't be able to stay with the VA and do the hero thing too - they're both full time gigs, you know?" he says.  "But I still sort of thought of it as - I don't know.  Not so corporate, maybe.  They made me sign a stack of non-disclosures a foot high and his Marketing people have a whole portfolio of, like, uniforms and merchandise and kids' toys dreamed up already."

"It's pretty overwhelming," Steve says, and Sam shakes his head.

"It makes me feel like a sell out," he says, mouth twisting.  "Dream of being the first black Avenger, end up as Uncle Tom."

"You can't control what people make of you," Steve says.

"You would know," Sam says, contemplative.  He pulls the goggles off so he can look Steve in the eye.  "How do you handle it?"

Steve laughs.  "Sam, you know better than anyone how much I don't."

"Fair enough," Sam says.  He folds his arms over his chest, eyes narrowed as he watches the sun sink down behind the city.  His shoulders are square, his back straight - he looks more like a hero than Steve has ever really felt like himself.

"I can do a lot of good as the Falcon," Sam says.  "There's nothing in the contract that says I gotta shill for him.  There's a lot of good I can do with the amount of money he's offering, too."

"Are you asking me all this, or are you telling me?" Steve asks.

Sam looks over at him.  "I'm telling you," he says, as if he's a little surprised himself.  "Yeah, I'm telling you.  Guess you and Barnes have a new neighbor."

"If it's worth anything, I don't think you'll be a sell out," Steve offers.  "I think you're gonna be amazing."  

"Thanks.  I will be," Sam says, quirking a smile at him.  

It makes Steve feel warm all over to see it, and slow like the morning he thinks: he could have loved Sam.  Sam is generous and charming and smart as hell, and Steve is attracted to him in a way that he's always known but never put a name to.  

It's odd to do it now, probing at the thought like a sore tooth.  He's never thought about a man like that before, thought about something beyond fucking.  But it's never occurred to him to really think about how being around Sam makes him feel.  And maybe how little difference there is between that and what he'd felt for Peggy, in that brief space of time between meeting her and tumbling head over heels for her.  

"Steve?" Sam asks, shaking him back to reality.  "Don't tell me you got vertigo or something."

"I'm okay," Steve says slowly, because he is.  He feels great.

  
  


 

 

-

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Steve," Sam says. Steve glances back at him. Sam's looking at him, his expression serious. "Steve, what's your hard line here?" he asks. "When is enough enough? What if he can't be helped?"
> 
> Steve shakes his head. "I can't," he says, and finds he can't finish the sentence. Let him go. Lose him again. Give up on him. There's no hard line to take. There's nothing in the world he wouldn't do for Bucky, even _this_ Bucky, who is terrifying and damaged and sometimes looks like a stranger.

-

 

Summer wanes. He and Sam take missions together, mostly on behalf of Coulson's team, who have remained steadfastly off the grid. They're interviewed a few times on the news afterwards. Sam handles the press and the attention like he was born to it. They're barraged with requests for more primetime interviews, sponsorship deals, reality shows, and Steve learns to be grateful for the Stark Industries PR buffer, who weed out anything that would be inappropriate for the "new" public image they're crafting. 

He thinks sometimes about what he'd realized standing on top of the Brooklyn Bridge with Sam. He knows the words - bisexual, queer, whatever - but he's never applied them to himself. If he loved a man - wouldn't he feel like a different person? (If Bucky had loved him - had been in love with Steve all the way back then - what did that make _Bucky_?) He doesn't find any answers.

It's not all good, of course. The hunt for SHIELD agents goes on, but Steve isn't called to testify again. He watches the narrative take shape from the outside instead, curled up safe and sound in Stark Tower away from any consequences of his actions. 

He and Bucky go to Coney Island once, a few weeks after Steve turns 96. They lose twenty minutes in the Aquarium while Bucky goes somewhere else in his head, watching the fish swim around. All Steve can do is sit and watch, helpless even to touch Bucky or hold his hand. Experience with these episodes has taught him that Bucky will come out of them disoriented and sometimes violent, and Steve holds his breath every time someone comes too close to them or looks at Steve in recognition, unsure of what could happen. He's not sure, later, if Bucky even retained the incident; after a while Buck simply stood up and moved on to the next big tank without a word.

And then he - 

Then one morning, he -

One morning Steve wakes up to an empty bed and the sound of breaking glass. He's on his feet, shield in hand, before he's even fully awake. His only thought is that it's HYDRA and they've come for Bucky. When he skids into the living room it's only Bucky standing there, completely naked and covered in blood, surrounded by broken glass and furniture. 

"Bucky?" Steve asks. Bucky turns at the sound of his name, eyes wild. He's got what used to be a floor lamp in one hand and he throws hard it at Steve and _screams_.

The sound of it is horrifying. He's never heard anything like it. Bucky's whole body contorts with it, like he's breaking bones to get all that hatred out. It curdles cold fear all the way through Steve and freezes him in place. The lamp shatters as it hits the shield and then Bucky's on him. 

It's like fighting the Winter Soldier in DC all over again. How fast he'd moved, how savage he hit. He grabs the shield right out of Steve's hands and throws it into the kitchen, where it hits the wall and stays there, jutting out of the broken tile. He's covered in sluggishly leaking cuts and his blood gets all over Steve, who is shouting and trying to pin his arms to his side, trying to get him to stop. They slam into the window hard enough that it cracks where Steve's skull hits it, hard enough that his vision grays out for the few seconds it takes for Bucky to break his nose.

He doesn't know when Sam, Bruce and Tony get there. One second Bucky's trying to get a hit in to his kidneys, still _screaming_ , and the next he's sagging bonelessly against Steve, his eyes huge and terrified. The sudden silence is overwhelming and they both tumble down, hands pulling them apart and dragging Steve away.

Bucky's sprawled out on the ground, limbs flopping around weakly, like he could still get away or fight back and for just a second Steve can barely recognize him - he looks like an animal, or a total stranger.

He's pretty sure Sam is talking to him - someone's putting a towel in his hand and he swipes vaguely at his face with it - Tony has some kind of stun gun and it's pointed right at Bucky -

" _Stop_ ," Steve says, and pulls the gun out of Tony's hand. It hurts to talk and abruptly Steve realizes he's bitten through the tip of his tongue. It starts throbbing as soon as he notices it. He's covered in Bucky's blood, and he's as naked as Bucky is. "It's okay. He didn't mean to hurt me, he doesn't know what he's doing."

"I meant it," Bucky hisses, hateful, and then manages to roll over to his side and throw up. Steve's on his knees instantly, helplessly. Up close the scars on Bucky's back are livid and scored with fingernail marks, like he'd been trying to tear the arm out before he started breaking the furniture.

"Don't you fucking touch me," Bucky groans, and then crawls into Steve's arms. Steve gathers him up, hides his face in Bucky's hair.

He can't even look at Sam or Bruce or Tony. He feels sick. His stomach is churning. He wants to throw up. He's _covered_ in Bucky's blood. His nose aches and he's swallowing blood from where he bit his tongue. There's a bite mark on the inside of Bucky's thigh, faded but clear enough to be noticeable.

Tony can't keep his fucking mouth shut while they start to pick up. But it's not a problem. They don't have to stay here. He can take Bucky somewhere else. He has money. (Does he, anymore? He's not even sure). They can go somewhere else, where he can keep Bucky safe. (How the hell is he supposed to do that? Bucky might have _killed_ Steve just now, he could see it in his eyes). It's not a problem. He just has to keep Bucky safe until he's okay again -

It hits him like a brick. Bucky is not okay. He probably won't ever be okay and even if maybe someday he's something like okay, he's still never going to be _Bucky_ again, the person he used to be. Steve is never going to see his best friend again.

It hurts all the way down to his bones. He lays off mopping up Bucky's blood from the hall and folds down onto his knees. He looks at his hands. They're shaking. He can feel little pebbles of glass digging into his shins. He can't breathe.

He feels arms fold around him and it's Sam - Sam is there, Sam is holding him. He's hunched over awkwardly, kneeling on the ground with Steve, and he's whispering over and over, "it's okay, it's okay, come on, Steve. You're okay."

Steve starts to cry. He can't help it. He's so ashamed - so sad and miserable and scared. He clings to Sam like he's drowning, trying to swallow down any sound so Tony and Bruce don't see. He can't stop shaking. 

"It's okay," Sam says. His arms are strong and warm around Steve's shoulders. "It's okay, Steve. You're okay."

It feels like it takes hours for him to calm down. He feels wrung dry. Sam holds on to him the whole time, until Steve can draw back, wiping at his face.

"Sorry," he says, looking at the ground.

"Come on," Sam says softly. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Steve answers. He looks down at the bloody rag still in his hand, at the mess all around them. He'll never be able to clean it all up. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Yeah, I bet," Sam says wryly. "Steve, look - your friends can only help if you let us."

Steve looks over his shoulder. Bruce is kneeling at Bucky's feet, cleaning blood off his legs. Tony's bent over in the kitchen, picking up chunks of tile. "I don't know how to help him," Steve says. It hurts to admit it, like something being wrenched out of his chest. As he watches, Bucky looks down at Bruce, his head cocked a little, considering. Something predatory in the movement of it.

"Steve," Sam says. Steve glances back at him. Sam's looking at him, his expression serious. "Steve, what's your hard line here?" he asks. "When is enough enough? What if he can't be helped?"

Steve shakes his head. "I can't," he says, and finds he can't finish the sentence. Let him go. Lose him again. Give up on him. There's no hard line to take. There's nothing in the world he wouldn't do for Bucky, even _this_ Bucky, who is terrifying and damaged and sometimes looks like a stranger. 

And like tumblers turning in his head, he thinks of how little difference there is between being in love with Peggy and how Bucky has always made him feel, his whole life: like he'd burn down the world for them. They blot out the sun. 

_You could love him now, if you wanted. _And Steve must be the biggest idiot in all of creation because God help him, he already does.__

__

____

-

Later, they go to bed. Bruce and Tony drifted off, awkwardly. Sam had lingered, not wanting to leave - his shoulders a set line. But eventually he'd left too. Bucky put clothes on eventually but he stayed sitting on the couch not saying a damn word, both hands wrapped around his ankles. Watching Steve. He'd gotten up willingly enough when Steve had suggested lying down, and they curl together like kids on top of the covers in Steve's room.

Bucky's looking at him with an odd, lost expression on his face, but after a moment he smiles at Steve, slow and wide and warm. It takes Steve's breath away and he smiles back, his heart thudding hard in his chest. He'd do anything for that smile. Bucky's arm and torso are pretty well bandaged but he's only got a few shallow scrapes on his chin and throat, already healing up.

Bucky reaches out towards him, traces metal fingertips across Steve's mouth, stroking gently over his jaw. The touch is cool and soothing on his skin. “If they have a problem,” Steve tells Bucky - tells himself - “we’ll leave. We don’t have to stay here.”

Bucky makes a soft sound in the back of his throat. He looks sad, his eyes flickering over Steve's face. It tugs at something in Steve's memory - the night Pearl Harbor was attacked. They'd sat up until almost dawn in the kitchen of Bucky's parents' home, talking about the Army and how they were gonna win the war and come back heroes. Steve's number hadn't come up in '40 so no one had stamped him 4F yet, and it didn't seem possible that Bucky would go off to war without him. 

He's thought about that night a lot, since waking up here. It hadn't seemed important at the time but looking back he could see that something changed in Bucky. While Steve had talked, Bucky had mostly sat and listened, uncharacteristically quiet. And he'd looked at Steve with a face sorta like the one he's making now - turned inward, listening to something Steve can't hear. 

"Bucky?" Steve asks, hesitantly. 

Bucky flinches, his eyes snapping back to meet Steve's gaze. He cards his fingers through Steve's hair. The feeling is comforting. Steve wraps an arm around Bucky's waist, tugs them a bit closer together. Their feet tangle up at the bottom of the bed. The whole world feels very quiet, like it's holding its breath.

"Bucky," Steve says again, soft, and finishes the sentence in his head: _I love you. I'm sorry I never knew. I'm sorry I couldn't stop this from happening to you._

"Yeah," Bucky says, barely more than a whisper. His eyes turn up at the corners like he's smiling. 

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asks.

"Yes," Bucky says, and scoots forward to kiss him, slow and humid. Steve leans into it, hungry for him, his tongue aching where it's almost knitted back together. How could he have not known that he was in love with Bucky Barnes? Had he been this way all his life? How had he managed to keep going, keep living, when Bucky was gone?

Steve presses a hand over Bucky's chest, everything alive in him cradled in the palm of Steve's hand. It feels like hours pass. Steve lets himself sink into the bed and into Bucky's arms, spilling over with things he's just put a name to. 

They order dinner, eventually. Bucky installs himself back on the couch when the food arrives. Steve grabs his phone off the table as he passes back into the living room, setting the bags down on the coffee table. A file's come through from Skye: the Winter Soldier mission dossier from grassyfuckingknoll, long promised. Steve turns on the TV instead. Colbert's on, with another segment of What Would Captain America Do? Denounce police brutality, apparently.

He glances at Bucky, who's watching Colbert with a wry look on his face - his right hand stroking down and over his own neck and chest, chopsticks held casually in his left - and wonders how Buck would answer the question, if Steve asked him.

-

He reads the dossier a few days later. He goes down to the 34th floor, where Tony allocated him a dim corner in a lab no one uses much, set up for some sort of weapons project that was decommissioned after Tony escaped captivity in Afghanistan. The boxes from Kiev are there, untouched, now with a few months worth of dust on top.

He lays the tablet down. Skye's email is brief - offering no commentary on the files themselves, just a warning that someone else had recently approached grassyfuckingknoll for the same information, so nothing else would be forthcoming without arousing suspicion.

There's a post script: _When I was a kid, Bucky Barnes was my favorite Howling Commando._

 _Me too,_ Steve writes back. _Thanks for your help. I'll be in touch._

He pulls each report onto the main display, hovering in the air in front of him. Sort by decade, then by year. There are twenty six. The earliest dates to 1949. The last, 2001. The missions Coulson worked with Bucky aren't in Skye's files and Steve has to wonder if it was intentional on Skye's part, or if the Winter Soldier is simply unknowable in his entirety. 

He wonders how old Bucky thinks he is, if he thinks about that sort of thing at all. Bucky was born at the end of 1917, missing the new year by a few short weeks, and when they were kids he used to lord being a whole year older than Steve for the seven months he actually was. If they ever totaled up the days or weeks Bucky spent awake during the decades Steve was in the ice, how would that number measure up against years of torture, or killing other people? It is - Steve thinks again - unknowable. 

He opens up Renke's database, pulls up those folders to shuffle into some order with the rest of them. 1953 gives him the other half of the story of Bucky's arm: an industrial explosion that took out twelve people in addition to the actual target and very nearly Bucky himself. The details of the op seem strange and quaint, the significance of the players lost to history. Up until that point Bucky's metal arm had been formed as a shell around his natural shoulder and bicep, the skeletal frame of the arm connecting into where they'd amputated above the elbow. The explosion gave them an excuse to take the rest of the arm, as well as what seems like half the bones in his shoulder. The difference in strength was exponential, once wear on the natural limb was taken out of the equation. It took almost a year for anyone to notice that the new arm overheated to the point of searing Bucky's skin around the prosthetic. 

Almost all of the files seem incomplete - an autopsy report here, a police report there, only a single witness statement in the first fifteen years. There's a memo tucked into an after action from an op in '61 from what appears to be one of Bucky's handlers, complaining that "the American" disregarded orders. What the orders were is not spelled out, but they expected full compliance the next time he was in the field. 

He's aware that the names and faces of Bucky's victims blur together for him in a way that Bucky's torture does not. It's hard to feel empathy for them; they are detailed sparingly if at all. Any photos of them are mugshots or autopsies. The twelve factory workers who died in 1953 are merely a list of names, as if even the police couldn't be bothered. If any of these men and women had families, had _children_ \- 

There are children. Listed in the files. Two children in Columbia, the son and daughter of a politician, aged eight and ten. Throats cut with the rest of their family: mother, father, grandfather. A little boy in Dalian, aged three, left alive and discovered the next morning when a neighbor heard him crying for hours, uncomforted. He'd been in the same room as his parents' bodies.

Steve remembers a time during the war, when they'd gotten a tip that a high ranking HYDRA officer would be passing through a remote area on his way to Berlin, carrying important documents. The area in question had been heavily logged at some point and the road was completely open, not a single tree around to offer cover.

They'd set Buck up on a hill probably a half mile back from the road, and the rest of them had crouched in a little valley as close in as possible, not really knowing if they'd be completely hidden. It had been snowing a little - the wind was up, visibility poor. But Buck had made the shot, beautifully. It hit the driver clean and the car turned over twice and came to rest upside down, smoking a little but not in any danger of catching fire.

The documents had been in the car - and so had the HYDRA officer's family. Dernier and Gabe had just laid the bodies out away from the road when Bucky made his way down to the crash site. He'd stood there wordlessly for a long time, hand braced on the strap of his rifle. Eyes on the little girl they hadn't known was in the car, on the woman in her wool dress, her belly heavily curved out. 

"It happens," Steve had told him, and held Buck through the next three nights while he cried in his sleep.

Buck spent most of the '70s asleep, and most of the '80s with the Soviets. Without the skeletal frame of Buck's medical history the threads feel disconnected, just one black knight all by himself on the board. Even in the context of what Steve's learned about the Cold War it all seems so - 

In the next folder there's an image of a dead man on an autopsy table, big black stitches just barely visible above the sheet pulled up over his chest. His hair is white and his face finely wrinkled. Except for the pallor of his skin and the horrible impact wound splitting his skull, he looks like he's sleeping. And Steve has seen photos of Howard as an old man, of course, but never - 

His eyes widen and he slams his hand down on the table, closing the file. Looks around over his shoulders. But of course the AI is probably watching - Steve assumes it always is.

He waves the file back open, cautiously. Listening for the sound of footsteps in the hallway. And this is how he learns that Bucky killed Tony Stark's parents.

There's nothing in the file that indicates Bucky's presence at the scene of the accident. No suspicious wounds or signs of struggle. Just two dead old people in a car crash on an icy road in Long Island, a few days before Christmas. No reason for this file to be included any more than the others, except that it was. 

God, they'd sent Bucky after his _friend_. Someone he'd admired during the war, had liked despite Howard's abrasiveness and the natural suspicion between Brooklyn boys and Long Island boys. Why would HYDRA have done that?

It seems so - malicious. So petty, to send the Winter Soldier after an old man and his wife, a decade past relevance.

Pierce probably would have called it poetic. 

 

 

-


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Besides," Tony adds, "I had to face my fears, or something. Bruce expresses it better than I do, he's pretty good at that stuff."
> 
> "You could keep an eye on Bucky here," Steve says softly, understanding. "On the man who killed your parents. If he wasn't - if he wasn't anything but the Winter Soldier anymore, you could be the one to make sure he wasn't a threat."
> 
> "No," Tony says simply. "It was you."

-

Sam! (17:02 10/18/14)  
 _So your boy just went all Florence Nightingale on me and asked me to call him Bucky_

Steve Rogers (17:48 10/18/14)  
 _???_

Sam! (17:52 10/18/14)  
 _Idk man he patched my shoulder up and then ghosted. Quit talking and wandered off.  
I think he's out on the balcony now???_

Steve Rogers (17:53 10/18/14)  
 _He ok?_

Sam! (18:01 10/18/14)  
 _How would I know? Lol_

Steve Rogers (18:02 10/18/14)  
 _Ok thx almst done here back son_

-

Bucky's out on the balcony when Steve gets back to their apartment. He's tired and sore. The uniform is covered in grime and rubble; his face probably is too, but he hasn't caught a look at himself for a bit.

Skye had tipped them off about a HYDRA safe house in Gowanus. Her intel hadn't mentioned the two Centipede soldiers camped out there, waiting for orders. Sam had been thrown off the roof of the warehouse, too low to the ground to get the wings out, and had gone straight into a dumpster. He'd been all right - more angry than hurt, Steve had thought, and hadn't noticed the blood running off Sam until it had all been over. Sam had waved off the ambulance and had headed back to Stark Tower directly, Tony promising medical attention on site.

Steve caught a ride back to Manhattan with some starry eyed police and had dozed most of the way there, and he's still rubbing the grit out of his eyes on the elevator ride up

He wants a shower, and sleep. But he can see Bucky sitting outside, curled in on himself, and Steve's feet turn towards him without a second thought.

Bucky glances over and then away when Steve flops down next to him, settling the shield down at their feet. Up close he looks hunted, an air of palpable misery and shame hanging on him, as thick as the smell of his cigarettes. Steve's not even sure where Bucky gets his smokes; no one has copped to buying them for him. Maybe he goes down and steals them from the Stark techs on the lower floors.

Steve sits back and breathes deep, waiting. After a moment, Bucky leans forward and picks up the shield, cradling it in his lap. Steve lets his head drop back and his eyes close. The couch shifts as Bucky settles in his seat, his metal fingers making soft scraping sounds over the shield. 

_He asked to be called Bucky _, Steve thinks, bemused, and then a cold hand wraps around his throat and starts to squeeze.__

__He opens his eyes to find Bucky staring intently at him, mouth just barely parted, his breathing as heavy as Steve's as he struggles to get air. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" Bucky asks._ _

__It's funny - the first thing he feels is relief. It's the first time Bucky's asked him anything in at least a month. Too bad it's such a stupid question. "Why would I be?"_ _

__Bucky's face twists up, like Steve's the idiot here. "I kill people," Bucky says. "I've killed a lot of people."_ _

__"So have I," Steve says, which is true. He's never kept count but he knows it's a lot, by now. "I don't know where you're going with this, Buck."_ _

__"I could kill you," Bucky tells him, and Steve has to laugh about that. It's true - Bucky could kill him. If anything in the world could finally kill him, it would be Bucky. But he hadn't. He wouldn't. Steve knows the truth of it down to his bones. So when Bucky's grip on his throat tightens, hard enough to crush Steve's larynx if he was still a real person, Steve lets it happen. Puts his hands over Bucky's and holds on._ _

__After a long, tense moment Bucky lets him go. The shield drops to the ground with a loud noise and rolls a little circle on the ground. It's a few seconds before Steve can get his breath back and when he looks over Buck is hunched into a little ball, shoulders up around his ears and face pushed into the inside of his arm, hiding away._ _

__Part of Steve has been waiting for this - wanting it. He'd expected it, when Bucky had first come to them. He held Bucky through the winter of 1944 and listened to Buck cry in his sleep, saw him come out of nightmares with a gun in his hand, not knowing where he was or sometimes who Steve was - which Steve understood. Steve had changed so much that he might as well have been a stranger in Buck's tent, in those first few moments of frantic consciousness._ _

__Changed physically, at least. Because that was the part that was so funny to Steve, and after the first few suspicious weeks, funny to Bucky also - Steve was just the same as that skinny kid from Brooklyn had been. Calmer, maybe - less angry at the world. But more than anything it just felt like his outsides finally matched his insides. Buck was the one who had changed._ _

__But no matter how much he's wanted to hear Buck open up, it still hurts to hear him say these things. That he wanted to kill people. That he could have escaped HYDRA. Buck's got his face practically stuck in his own arm pit so all Steve can see is a sliver of blue eye over his shoulder, wide and sad looking._ _

__"It wasn't you," Steve says, over and over. "You didn't have a choice. They tortured you."_ _

__"You don't know what they did," Bucky says, flatly, but that's not true at all._ _

__"I've read the file HYDRA had on you," Steve admits, and Bucky yanks backwards like Steve's burning him. There are tears in his eyes, and Steve's whole body aches. "It doesn't matter," Steve tries to say, but Bucky talks over him, heedless._ _

__"You don't know," Bucky breathes. "The first time they sent me out it was to a - a test, to an American base, and I drank a beer with a guy and then I went back to them. I did that. I did all of that, whatever you think you saw in, in some fucking file."_ _

__Steve knows this. Renke didn't have any English and had drifted off into a page long rant that it was unfair that his superiors were blaming him for not noticing the way Bucky spoke. Bucky had been possessive of his drawl in the Army, liked the way it marked him as a New Yorker. To the rubes he'd gone to Basic with, he was exotic, tough like Jimmy Cagney. In HYDRA's hands it had earned him five days in a locked room with no toilet, where they turned on sirens every time he tried to sleep._ _

__"Bucky," Steve tries, but Bucky puts his fists up, warning Steve off. His right hand is shaking. His hair is escaping from where he's got it tied up and it falls around his face. He looks so - he looks - he looks like _Bucky Barnes_. Long haired, unshaven, tired and older and wanting so badly for Steve to give up on him._ _

__"You don't know," Bucky says again, low and soft. He drops his fists, jaw working. And maybe it's true. Bucky is a locked box, so Steve fumbles for a key._ _

__"Okay, so I don't know," he tries. "I would if you told me, though."_ _

__Bucky looks down, and licks his lips. "I don't want you to know," he says, but then on the heels of that says, "After they found me they left bones sticking out of my arm for days. My fingers were rotting right off my hand. I didn't know where I was. I thought I was gonna die."_ _

__It hits Steve like a physical blow. He can't breathe. He knows this - he saw the photos of the stump, grainy and colorless, Bucky's eyes bright with terror, naked and fighting - but it's different to hear him say it. He didn't know how different it would be to hear him say it._ _

__He can picture it, vividly. Like it's happening right there. Bucky must have been so scared._ _

__Buck stops talking. He watches Steve silently for a long moment while Steve struggles to get a hold of himself. He should have gone to look for Bucky. He should have tried harder to get to him, before he fell. He should've let Bucky talk him out of that stupid, reckless plan to begin with. He should've jumped right then and there._ _

__He breathes _in.__ _

___It's not about you._ _ _

__He breathes _out_. _ _

__So when Bucky says Steve wouldn't let him leave, Steve says, "Go ahead," and shrugs like it doesn't matter to him. "Get out of here. I won't try and stop you. No one will."_ _

__

__He doesn't say, _I'd do anything to keep you safe_. He doesn't say: _I trust you to come back_. He doesn't say anything, just watches as Bucky inches backwards, a look on his face like he thinks Steve's trying to pull a fast one on him. _ _

__The apartment is quiet and still, after Bucky leaves. Steve peels himself off the couch and out of the uniform, dropping it in pieces on the bathroom floor. The shower is as good as he was hoping it would be. He walks naked to their room and pulls on a clean shirt and jeans, which feel soft against his skin. He feels a lot calmer than maybe he should be, having just set the Winter Soldier loose on Manhattan, but it's okay. The others haven't liked him taking Bucky out of the Tower, but Bucky's right - they can hardly keep him imprisoned. Sooner or later, their war really will be over._ _

__JARVIS informs him that Tony is in a lab on the 22nd floor. It's only when the elevator doors open and he sees Tony, his face obscured by safety goggles, hunched over something making a terrific racket and a lot of sparks, that he remembers he hasn't seen the man since he shot Bucky in the ass with a sedative a few weeks ago - before Steve seen the Winter Soldier mission files._ _

__Tony looks up and shuts off the machinery, his eyes magnified cartoonishly by the goggles. "Cap," he says, "to what do we owe the pleasure?"_ _

__Steve opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. It feels like the bottom of his stomach's fallen out. He shouldn't have come down here. JARVIS would have helped him figure out city surveillance and how to find Bucky, when he's ready to be found._ _

__"Ah," Tony says, leaning back. His expression doesn't change. "So you know."_ _

__"Tony," Steve manages. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry."_ _

__Tony pulls off the goggles and studies him for a long moment, silently. His foot twitches back and forth on the stool he's perched on. "Well," he says, and stops. "Well, I guess there's that."_ _

__"How long have you known?" Steve asks._ _

__Tony flaps a hand, absently. "Oh, the whole time. Found out after the Widow's info dump." When Steve doesn't say anything, he smiles. It's kinder than Steve's expecting - more genuine than he knew Tony was capable of. "You wondering why I asked you to stay anyway?"_ _

__He steps off the stool lightly, not waiting for Steve's answer, and strips off his work gloves, settling them carefully on the stool. The lab is alive with robots, wheeling around doing various tasks. Tony watches them instead of Steve, his expression distant. "I had some problems last year," he says. "Not sure if you heard about what happened or anything. Probably did, a bunch of people died, I blew up all of my suits. Anyway, before all that the problem was me. Turns out fighting off an alien invasion can kinda fuck your head up - who knew? Everyone else seemed fine. _You_ were fine - and a week prior you'd found out everyone you ever loved was dead or senile. It was just me."_ _

__Steve says nothing, his hands by his side. He's only a step or two into Tony's lab, hesitant to come any further despite the gentle tone of Tony's voice. "I couldn't hack it," Tony says. "Went totally off the rails. Couldn't stay in New York, couldn't handle not being in the armor, not being protected. Couldn't handle Pepper. And it took a lot to change that, a lot more than it should have. Pepper almost died. _Would've_ died, but thankfully she didn't need me to rescue her, she took care of that part herself. After that, I knew had to get it together. I got rid of all the suits, moved back to my Tower and started going to a whole lot of therapy. And then you and Killer Diller showed up."_ _

__Tony waves his hands like he's Al Jolson. Ta-dahhh._ _

__"We'll leave," Steve says, immediately. "We shouldn't have stayed here in the first place. Tony, if you'd only told me -"_ _

__Tony shrugs. "Told you what? What would you have done? Where would you have gone?"_ _

__Steve's silent, because there isn't an answer to that. He has no idea._ _

__"Besides," Tony adds, "I had to face my fears, or something. Bruce expresses it better than I do, he's pretty good at that stuff."_ _

__"You could keep an eye on Bucky here," Steve says softly, understanding. "On the man who killed your parents. If he wasn't - if he wasn't anything but the Winter Soldier anymore, you could be the one to make sure he wasn't a threat."_ _

__"No," Tony says simply. "It was you."_ _

__Steve frowns, and looks up uncertainly. Tony's standing there, his hands in his pockets. He looks calm and focused - so different than how he was when Steve first met him. He's so much older than Steve is, in some ways. Decades older._ _

__"My dad never stopped looking for you, you know," Tony says. He picks up a tool at random from the table and turns it over in his hands. "Felt like he never stopped talking about you, either. We weren't close. You knew that, though."_ _

__He tosses the tool into the air, letting it spin a few times before catching it. "You know, I'd never really tried therapy before?" he says abruptly. "It's awful but I think I'm getting pretty good at it. This open, honest communication thing. Better, at least. I didn't want to know you. I didn't like you. You can come off a little self-righteous, you know that?"_ _

__"I've been told, yeah," Steve says._ _

__"Maybe that's a little mean," Tony says, frowning. "Pepper would tell me I'm being mean."_ _

__"It's not wrong, though," Steve says._ _

__"You're a dinosaur, Rogers - "_ _

__"Now that is mean," Steve says, and Tony laughs._ _

__"Yeah, I'm getting sidetracked. The point I'm trying to make is, you just - ever since I was a kid I knew that Captain America expected the best out of people, and that's a lot of weight when, let's be honest, you're the kind of person who should've started therapy a few decades ago, if not gone through some twelve steps. Which I am. I'm talking about myself here."_ _

__"Aren't you always?" Steve asks, and takes a step forward, into the lab. Tony grins._ _

__"So that in itself would be enough to make any sane recovering alcoholic run for the hills," he says, "let alone a kid who _also_ grew up in the shadow of Steve Rogers. But when I came back to New York, I'd decided I was done running. So when you and Barnes showed up, I thought ... I'm not gonna run from you either. _ _

__"I thought you'd be - different. Larger than life," Tony says, a wry smile on his face. "But you really are just a kid from Brooklyn, aren't you?"_ _

__"I keep trying to tell people," Steve says, but his voice cracks when he says it. He looks down at his shoes._ _

__"You're not okay," Tony says, and all Steve can do is shake his head, still looking at his shoes. "Well, I'd say no one expects you to be but that's a crock of shit and you know it. So fuck it, am I right? You keep trying to live up to this fantasy novel that the rest of us made of you, you're -"_ _

__"I'm gonna drown under it," Steve says softly._ _

__"Yep," Tony says. "So fuck it. Besides, this new Cap who shit talks Williamsburg and knows current events tests a lot better in our market research. Turns out people like sassy Steve Rogers. Maybe they'll like emotionally vulnerable fucked up Steve Rogers too."_ _

__"Glad to hear the PR blitz is working," Steve says, dry._ _

__"It is," Tony says seriously. "I mean you always ranked high as trustworthy but _likeability _gained pretty sharply, or so they tell me. People don't think you're a fossil anymore, Cap - be careful or they might actually want to take you seriously."___ _

____"That's kinda been the whole point," Steve tells him._ _ _ _

____"Your funeral," Tony says. "Oh, and - don't go, please stay, we can't live without you, all that jazz. I'm gonna make the Avengers a thing, and it would be totally weird if you didn't join. I mean, you're already here and I finally sweet talked Wilson into the idea. Think of how awkward the Christmas parties would be if you didn't sign up. We have great benefits. Like, great benefits, I designed the package myself."_ _ _ _

____"You're - you're restarting the Avengers Initiative?" Steve asks, a little thrown._ _ _ _

____"Yeah, there's a big ol' vacancy in the saving the world business, since you single handedly took down one of the biggest security apparatuses around," Tony says, shrugging. "Besides, I think we could do a pretty good job of it. Or better than we did the first time around, at least. I can do better, I mean."_ _ _ _

____He looks at Steve expectantly. All that Steve can do is say, "If you'll have me."_ _ _ _

____Tony smiles - small and genuine, turning away from Steve for a moment until he can school his expression. "Good," he says, and clears his throat. "Good. I'm glad."_ _ _ _

____He looks down at his feet for a moment, looking back up with his usual smirk back in place. "So - what did you come down here for, anyway? I assume it wasn't a heart to heart."_ _ _ _

____"Sergeant Barnes has left the premises, sir," JARVIS says, startling Steve. Tony just rolls his eyes heavenward._ _ _ _

____"Always the last to know," he complains. "Alright, Rogers, your ulterior motives show through. Let's go find your boyfriend."_ _ _ _

____ _ _

______ _ _

-

He finds Bucky waiting for him down by the water. It had already quit raining by the time Steve wheeled the bike out of Tony's garage and headed downtown, but half an hour later Bucky still looks pretty wet through. He looks up when Steve approaches, warily eyes the pizza Steve hands over as a peace offering.

They sit and eat in silence. The concrete is cold and damp under Steve's butt but the air smells briny and the sound of the water is soothing. When he was real little Steve and his mom had lived not too far from here, near enough to the water that Steve could hear the ships coming in and out through the air shaft that was all they had for a window. Bucky's family lived two buildings down, in one of the nicer tenements on the block. Becca had just been born, or maybe Esther; either way there'd been a baby around when he and Buck had made friends, he thinks, but he can't even remember what it was like before that, in some dim time where he didn't know Bucky.

"How long have I been here?" Bucky asks. His voice sounds a little rough. He stares out over the river when he asks, his face lit up softly by the light of the city. 

"Seven months," Steve says, around a mouthful of pizza. Thereabouts, he means to say, but of course he knows exactly how long. 

"What month is it?"

"October," Steve says. It's been a hell of a year.

Bucky frowns. "I missed your birthday."

 

On Steve's birthday he'd been in New Jersey with Antoine Triplett, tracking down a woman who had escaped from what Trip called "the Fridge," who had thrown Steve hard enough that he'd actually fractured a wrist. Some kind of enhancement, Trip told him afterwards, and wished Steve a happy birthday on the ride back, the fireworks show on the East River barely visible as they crested over the George Washington Bridge. Bucky had woken up when Steve had gotten back to the apartment, had sleepily said hello and allowed Steve to fold him gingerly into his arms and hold on until they fell asleep. Best birthday in years. 

Steve takes the empty plate from Buck and throws their garbage away. They sit and watch the city in silence for a while. Bucky twists his fingers in and around each other, his foot twitching like he's gearing up to say something. Steve waits, but it doesn't come.

After a while Steve asks, "You remember we used to swim in this sometimes, in the summer?" He hears Bucky exhale, and, out of the corner of his eyes, sees a faint nod.

The more Bucky talks, the more Steve has gotten the sense that he does remember - he just doesn't _want_ to. But that's changing too.

"I want to read my file," Bucky says, abruptly. 

“I figured,” Steve says. He digs some napkins out of his pocket, hands most of them to Bucky and is rewarded with the sight of Bucky studiously cleaning pizza grease out of the joints of his left hand. “I’ve got it for you, back at the Tower. Do you - want to tell me about any of it?”

Bucky sighs. “I don’t know, Steve." He looks so _sad_ when he says it.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve says. He doesn't even know if he's said as much before. He said a lot of stuff when Bucky first came back, anything he could think of to get through to this weird, silent stranger wearing his best friend's face. He's pretty sure that it was the wrong approach, but this at least - it's important to say it. "You know that, right?"

Sure enough, Buck looks at him like he's an idiot. "Steve," he says, "in a world where I was either a person who could make choices or a - a rabid animal who had no control, what do you think I'd _want_ to be? If I don't -"

He stops, one hand reaching up to rub at his throat. "If it wasn’t something I coulda changed," he continues, after a moment, "if I really couldnt've fought back - I hate that worse. If I don't blame myself, then I don't feel anything at all. You hear me? I don't wanna be like that again. Not ever. I'll take it."

"But -" Steve says, and Bucky throws up a hand.

"Steven Grant Rogers, you _listen to me_ ," he snarls. "I'll take it."

“All right, all right,” Steve grumbles, ceding the ground. It all sounds very dramatic to him. “It's all your fault, you dumb shit. I don't know why you'd listen to anyone tell you otherwise. Anyone ever tell you you're more stubborn than God?"

"That's rich, coming from you," Bucky says, and stuns the hell out of Steve when he follows it up with, "and I _was_ in love with you, y'fucking mook, and don't you try and tell me I wasn't. I _know_."

 

Bucky leans back, his face creasing with satisfaction, like he's finally put Steve in his place. He used to grin when they were young, back when grinning like a loon was the default expression of Bucky Barnes. This Bucky Barnes speaks in silences and wide eyes and the faintest slant of his mouth but Steve'll be damned if he's not gonna do his best to learn this language too.

That doesn't mean he can't be delighted to hear that Brooklyn sound coming out of Bucky's mouth, though. 

"Yeah, you tell it, Cagney," he say, grinning so wide his face kinda hurts. "Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say - no, no, hang on. I'm sorry, you don't usually sound so - I'm sorry, Buck, come on."

He catches Bucky's hand, holding him still. Bucky looks down at where their fingers are tangled, skin to skin, and slowly sits back down. Steve takes a deep breath. Bucky's watching him, his eyes searching Steve's intently.

"You never told me, back then," Steve says, and hopes it's the right thing. That it's not too selfish to ask. "Least you can do is give me a chance now."

Bucky shakes his head and looks away. "I'm not that guy anymore, Steve. Haven't you been listening to me?"

"That guy I was never woulda gave it a shot," Steve says, honest even though it feels a little shameful to admit it. Bucky looks back at him, expression already closing up. Steve holds a hand up. "Maybe he didn't know he could. I dunno, Buck. You tell me. What kind of people are you and me now?"

And ain't that the question of the century.

 

 

-

So Bucky talks. And Steve listens. It's hard to hear it but it was a million times harder to live it so Steve does the best he can.

When it gets too cold on the water they walk to a bar nearby, Bucky leading the way like he's been there before. They sit in a back booth and talk and drink beers that don't really affect either one of them, and when the server tells them it's last call Steve pays their tab. They take the bike back to Manhattan, Bucky riding relaxed and easy behind him, one loose hand on Steve's waist, his thighs warm around Steve's hips, his cheek resting on Steve's shoulder. The city rushes to meet them, the river below lit up and glittering, Brooklyn Bridge swooping above their heads. 

They chase yellow cabs all the way up the Bowery. This late at night the city is almost quiet, the streets slick and glistening with rain. The Tower is silent except for its omnipresent hum, and in the elevator up Steve tugs Bucky into his arms and kisses him for sixty three floors. 

He pulls the files up for Bucky and then goes and shucks his shoes, swapping his leather jacket for a nice fuzzy sweater that had been in the apartment when they first got here. He listens to the steady _inhale exhale_ of Bucky sitting by himself in their kitchen, paging through his own history. He's afraid to go out there and look, but - 

Bucky's looking through a report of surgery on his shoulder, dated 1947, when Steve comes back to the kitchen. Metal arm, version 1. (He was on his third iteration by the end of Renke's files and God only knew what had been done to him since then). The arm in question is tapping restless fingertips on the countertop. They make a pleasant metallic ring against the stone.

Steve makes them both coffee. "Do you speak German?" he asks, sliding a mug in front of Bucky.

"Yes," Bucky says, but doesn't elaborate. After a moment he says, tentatively, as if they hadn't talked for hours already, "I didn't know what they were doing when they put me in the box. I didn't know what they were doing was even possible. My doctor, he told me about it once, I think - it was a long time after they started. They left me asleep for a week the first time and I had a seizure coming out of it. There was damage to my brain but it must have healed because they did it again a few weeks later."

"It healed," Steve says, blowing over the surface of his coffee. "1948, you'll see it in a minute."

Bucky makes a soft sound in response, paging forward. 

"Where did you learn this kind of technology?" Steve asks. Bucky looks over at him.

"SHIELD," he says. "They -"

He hesitates. "They had me for a long time. I don't know how long. After the Russians, maybe. But they used this kind of operating system to give me my orders. It's intuitive."

There: scans of his brain after the seizure, tracking the rate of healing. Notes in German alongside: _subject has regained the ability to walk, subject can hold spoon and feed himself, subject continues to experience periodic non-epileptic seizures._

Bucky's jaw works. "I never wanted any of this. I used to be somebody," he says, low and quiet, his left hand drawing up into a fist. "I was a person. I had a family."

"We can go see them," Steve says, just as quiet. "They're buried in Brooklyn. We can go any time you want."

He hears something in Bucky's arm start to whir as his fist clenches and, after a long moment, relaxes. There's no change in Bucky's expression but Steve sits and watches him anyway, traces his eyes over the familiar line of Bucky's jaw, the softness of his chin, the dark smudge of his eyelashes. 

"Sometimes they would just point at someone, to have me kill them," Bucky says. "A guard - a doctor - it didn't matter. Everyone was disposable there except for Zola and me. And I'd do it. No reason not to."

He looks at Steve, like a challenge. "You woulda done the same thing," he says. "You couldn't have held out either."

"I know," Steve says, helplessly. "Buck, I know. You've always been stronger than me."

Bucky growls, soft in his throat, and looks away, scrolling through 1948 and into 1949. There's a lock of hair escaping from its tie and Steve reaches out to smooth it back. Bucky catches Steve's wrist before he can, settling it back on the table - but then he curls his own hand on top, metal fingers warming against Steve's.

"Nothing mattered," Bucky says, his free hand poised to scroll, two fingers up in the air. His voice is empty of emotion, as it has been for most of the night: just stating the facts. "Whether I fought, whether I was hurt, who they told me to kill, what I had to do to get the mission completed. Nothing."

"Buck," Steve says, and his voice cracks. He's wanted to know for so long. "Why did you come looking for me?"

Bucky hesitates, staring up at an X-Ray of his own spine, the image annotated all over in Russian. He says, "I knew you. I saw you and I knew you."

"Why do you stay?" Steve asks, and Bucky looks over at him, rolls his eyes away like the answer's obvious. The sun's starting to come up and his eyes look huge and lit up from within, luminously blue, his pupils only pinpricks even in the dim light of the kitchen. 

"I'm in love with you," Steve says, into the silence between them. Bucky stares at him, a line between his eyebrows, like he can't believe the dumb shit that comes out of Steve's mouth. After a long moment, he laughs - just a soft huff of breath.

"Figures," he says. "You got shitty timing, Rogers."

"You said you'd give me a chance," Steve reminds him, turning his hand over to enclose Bucky's fingers in his own.

"No I didn't," Bucky says, but tugs Steve's hand up to brush a kiss over his knuckles, teeth worrying gently over Steve's pointer finger, covering up the little quirk of his mouth.

 

 

-


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "After SHIELD, the show was pushing for a new anti-Nazi drone program," Colbert says, shaking his head. "I guess we were a little on the nose with that. We're thinking of planting a HYDRA spy on the writing staff, now ... We've got an intern with long brown hair, maybe we can end the hunt for the Winter Soldier."
> 
> "Sounds perfect," Steve says.

-

 

Steve wakes up warm. Details come to him in slow, easy pieces: the weight of Bucky's hand on his chest stroking broad circles, the solid wall of his body tucked up against Steve's own. The coolness of the sheet underneath his toes, peeking out from the blanket. The low hum of the heater kicking on. He shifts a little, and feels Bucky press closer against him, hand sweeping down his belly. 

Steve makes a soft, pleased sound. His whole body is heavy and relaxed with sleep. They adjust position gradually, Steve tilted back, legs a little spread, most of his weight on Bucky. Bucky's hand rubbing Steve's dick through his shorts, coaxing him along.

" _Ahh_ ," Steve says - a dumb little sound, hardly more than an exhale, pushing his hips up into Bucky's grip. He's not awake enough for much else - turns his head and pants _yeah, shit, Buck_ into the humid air between them, back arching reflexively from how _good_ it feels. Bucky presses a kiss to his neck, sucks idly on the skin there for a second before shifting away and rolling Steve onto his back.

They tug Steve's shorts off together, a little uncoordinated. And Steve loves this part: the little pause as Bucky settles between his knees and takes Steve in hand, his breath warm on Steve's thigh. The anticipation of what comes next that makes him shiver all over. And finally the wet heat of Bucky's mouth on the head of his dick, swallowing him down. 

Bucky doesn't waste any time. No fancy tricks, just the steady slow suck Steve likes best, the kind that makes the whole world disappear out from under him. Steve's had girls who were good at this, a few who were great, but never long enough that they got to know him the way Bucky did - the way they've relearned each other.

After, he pulls Bucky up to kneel over him, pushing a few pillows between Steve and the headboard so he can return the favor. Steve likes it like this, something they never really did when Steve was small. Their height difference made the position feel ridiculous and Steve too  
prone to choking but now - now he can feel Bucky's thighs shaking on either side of his chest, can grab Bucky's ass and feel the lazy flex of his hips as he fucks Steve's mouth. 

A few strands of Steve's hair catches in the plating on Bucky's fingers, little flares of pain that feel sweet in the moment. Bucky's not tugging so much as he's rubbing his hands over Steve's scalp, little scratches with the fingernails on his right hand, his eyes closed and mouth parted, swollen from sucking Steve off. Steve's eyes are also closed, breathing slow and steady through his nose, letting Buck take his time with it. He runs his hands up Bucky's sides, tracing the lean line of muscle there.

A hitch in Bucky's breathing lets Steve know he's close. Steve looks up through his lashes to see Bucky watching him, his expression blown wide and breathless. Steve lets his own eyes soften, still focused on keeping his throat open and his jaw relaxed. Bucky smiles back and comes like Steve had asked him nicely to, easing back just far enough not to make Steve gag. He can feel Bucky's toes curl with it.

They kiss for a while, Bucky still more or less sitting on Steve's chest, the moment stretching on and on. Steve feels like he could sleep for a year. He feels like he could take on the world. Eventually Bucky leans back and stretches long and luxurious, letting Steve drink in the sight of him.

"Shower," he says, and unfolds, pressing one last kiss to Steve's forehead. Steve rolls onto his side, folds an arm under his head, and falls back asleep with a smile.

When he wakes up, Bucky's side of the bed is cold. Steve smooths a hand over Buck's pillow, making sleepy sounds to himself. The first few months he and Buck started sleeping together, an empty bed would've sent Steve into a panic - that Bucky was gone, that HYDRA had come for him, that Steve had dreamed the whole thing. 

This morning, he only feels relaxed. Rested. Some nice morning sex has a lot to do with that, of course, but the last few weeks have been - different, for both of them. He hasn't taken any missions since the night by the river. They've left the Tower a few times to take the train over to Brooklyn and walk around their old neighborhoods, visit the Brooklyn Museum. In a heavy coat and cap, Steve has gone unrecognized, but Bucky mostly speaks for them when speaking has to be done: to order food or coffee or beer or once, embarrassingly, to ask directions. 

A few days ago they rode out to Queens to visit Bucky's family at Mount Carmel. Steve had been out before, so he'd led the way through quiet rows of graves. They didn't talk as they made their way up the hill, Bucky roving off the path occasionally to pick something up off the ground and tuck it into his pockets.

The Barnes family plot was small, close enough to the parkway that they could hear cars rushing by, like the wind. Bucky went to his knees in front of his parents' graves. Steve stood a few feet back, watching. He knew the dates well enough.

_Peter Barnes_  
1895 - 1981  
Beloved Husband and Father 

_Naema Barnes_  
1897 - 1949  
Beloved Wife and Mother 

"Your dad converted before he died, so that he could be buried with your mom," Steve said to Bucky's bowed head. "He never remarried. Your brother's buried in Israel, he emigrated there in the early 90s. We'll visit Rebecca when you're ready, she's over with her husband's family just down the way."

"Esther?" Bucky asked, hardly more than a rasp of air. His metal fingers flashed in the cold sunlight as he leaned forward and started pulling grass and dead leaves away from the stones. 

"She married a Catholic," Steve said. "She's in Cypress Hill. We can walk over there."

"Okay," Bucky said, and pulled three pebbles out of his pocket. He didn't hesitate, placing the third pebble on top of the biggest headstone of the group, even though he hadn't even glanced at it once as he'd cleaned his parents' stones, and he didn't look back as he walked away. 

After, they had lunch at a Dominican spot underneath the elevated tracks, the M train thundering overhead every ten or fifteen minutes. "I don't know any of the prayers anymore," Bucky told Steve, bent over his food.

"Do you want to go to temple sometime?" Steve asked, but Bucky only shook his head. 

Yesterday they'd gone to Bruce with some of Bucky's old medical files and spent a few hours learning what had probably happened to Bucky's body since the early 60s, and what was going on in his brain when he _went away_ , and left with a begrudging compromise between Bucky and Bruce about maybe running some tests. Last night Steve had confirmed plans with Peggy for them to visit in a few weeks, when she was recovered from the cold that had been plaguing her.

Life felt - quiet. Insulated. It was a feeling Steve wasn't used to, one that usually made him a little itchy with inaction. Something had shifted in both of them, that night on the waterfront, and it was - 

It's good. He feels good.

Steve tugs some shorts on and pads out to the kitchen. Bucky's sitting shirtless at the table, his files spread out in the air around him. He's dividing his attention between some blood tests from 1952 and a grainy video of Renke from the same year, speaking German in a soft, quivering sort of voice. Steve hates this video. It's far from the worst that they recovered in Kiev, but even the beginning makes Steve's stomach want to crawl out of his throat. 

Bucky reaches out as Steve passes, strokes a hand up his arm without looking away from whatever he's doing. Steve puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder, squeezing a little accidentally when he yawns. 

" - the steroid compound I've created mimics the effects of Vita-Rays on the subject's musculature," Renke is saying. "We've seen rapid growth over the last few days and when the swelling subsides we will begin strength testing." Steve grimaces at the video display and goes to get coffee started.

"Your phone's been buzzing," Bucky tells him. Steve yawns again, and reaches for his phone from where he'd left it on the counter last night, trying to remember his schedule. Bucky has another appointment with Bruce - Steve will be on the Colbert Report tomorrow - Sam's official move is next week, hooray! - 

Steve drops his phone right off the counter when he sees the screen, and has to scramble on the ground for it. He peeks at the screen and almost drops it all over again. "Nine thousand alerts!" he says, shocked. Thirty five voicemails, ninety one texts - good God.

"It's been buzzing," Bucky says again, unconcerned.

"I didn't know you could have this many emails," Steve says, scrolling rapidly.

Agent Skye (07:48 11/1/14)  
 _So I guess we know who's been talking to grassyfuckingknoll  
If I'd known I'd have done something to stop it. I'm sorry _

Sam! (06:19 11/1/14)  
 _Dude_  
Have you seen this???  
http://tinyurl.com/pd78yy3  
Your boy is all over it

Unknown (05:21 11/1/14)  
 _If u need out of country I can help_

Steve ignores the other texts and opens the link from Sam. It goes to Buzzfeed News, which he wasn't expecting. There have been over 30,000 reblogs since it was posted - four hours ago. The title says, "Captain's Orders: the Truth About Project Insight."

" _Goddammit_ ," Steve says.

He hands the phone out to Bucky, whose fingers click against the metal as he takes it. Steve pours them both coffee as Bucky reads through the article. Steve's tablet vibrates in harmony with the phone as the number of alerts and reblogs climb.

"Captain," JARVIS says, from everywhere, "your presence is requested on the eighteenth floor, as soon as possible."

"Give us a minute," Steve says, watching Bucky's face.

In the background, Renke prattles on, " - the arm is of course is the most visible enhancement of the subject. Currently, use in accordance with his newfound strength has lead to injury in the natural tissue under the plating, well outside of set tolerances." An operating table is visible in the background of the video, a body moving sluggishly on top of it.

After a few minutes - hours, it feels like, Bucky stops scrolling, locks the phone and hands it back to Steve. They look at each other in silence. Every few seconds, the phone buzzes in Steve's hand.

"We can leave," Steve says. "Start over somewhere else. Natasha can help us put together new identities."

Bucky snorts. " _I_ could leave," he says.

It's true - Steve is so _known_ but it hurts anyway to hear him say it. "We can leave," Steve says again. "They'll throw you in prison."

"They can try," Bucky says.

Tony's voice comes from the ceiling. Bucky doesn't even break eye contact. "Hey Cap, so we kinda need you in the war room, like, ASAP. I don't know if you've seen the internet today but you kinda broke it."

"Give us a minute," Steve says again. "Bucky, what do you want to do?"

"It was nearly a week between when the subject injured himself and when the limb was actually amputated, so of course there was extensive damage to the surrounding tissues," Renke is saying. "The next planned upgrade should yield much more favorable -"

He's interrupted by a muted crash as the body in the background falls off the table. Renke looks over his shoulder and sighs. He goes to crouch over the body, half out of frame. Off camera, a voice asks, "Do you need a moment, to take care of that?"

"It's quite all right," Renke answers, helping Bucky to a sitting position, propped up against the side of the table. Bucky reaches vaguely towards Renke's face with his left hand, his movements slow and unfocused. He can barely hold his own head up. "No no," Renke says, as gently as if he's speaking to a child, pushing away Bucky's hand.

Renke looks back at the camera, his face lighting up. "Actually, would you like a demonstration of his healing capabilities? It is simply fascinating. You can actually visibly see the cell regrowth, it is a very impressive testament to our efforts. We spent nearly two years conditioning him against reaction and we have very effective safety measures, so it's quite safe. Shall we start with third degree burns?"

"Bucky," Steve says again. His voice cracks in the middle. "All those things they say about you, they're not - they don't know about what happened, they don't know what was done to you. They'll hunt you down. They're not gonna understand."

Bucky looks up at the video, at himself sixty two years ago, braced over Renke's shoulders as the doctor helps him carefully back onto the table and begins to prep him for the demonstration. The Bucky on video is speaking, mumbling something in English to the doctor, but the words are so slurred as to be incomprehensible. 

"Maybe they should," he says.

-

Stark's team had definitely, absolutely, very strongly, Captain Rogers, we really can't tell you how much, advised him to cancel his scheduled appearance on the Colbert Report and to hold a press conference later that day to address the viral article, 'Captain's Orders.'

They had advised him to distance himself from the anonymous collective of former SHIELD agents who had authored it - the political situation still being so fraught.

They had advised him not to comment on the existence of the Winter Soldier, or the manhunt launched on Reddit within hours of the article's posting, or the Kickstarter that had been created for the victims of HYDRA. 

"No," Steve had said, and kept on saying it, and eighteen hours or so later finds himself standing on the set of the Colbert Report, pestering the camera operators while they set up. It's half the size of the Daily Show set and everyone is very friendly and clearly unsure of whether they're allowed to shoo him back into the green room.

Captain's Orders was the lead story on Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck last night. Steve himself is the top trending hashtag on Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest. The Kickstarter, named Ordinary Heroes, has raised over fifty grand. The manhunt for the Winter Soldier has turned up the unsolved murders of two policemen the day after the Helicarriers went down, but only false leads on his current whereabouts.

Steve has introduced himself to nearly every person on set. He's so keyed up he keeps catching himself bouncing on his heels. Sam's hanging out in the front row, focused on his cell phone, letting Steve do aggressively friendly laps around the room. 

An hour until showtime. There were already people lined up outside the building when they arrived, and Steve has already been forbidden from buying all of them coffee to keep warm. The show staff will send the audience members through security and then let them into the studio a few dozen at a time. Then the warm up guy, then Colbert will come out to do a Q&A out of character. Then the show - and whatever happens after.

The show runners aren't questioning why Steve has chosen them to address the article; they want to turn over the whole episode to him, whatever he wants to discuss. There are a multitude of Stark Industry lawyers backstage, hashing out last minute details with Comedy Central's legal team, but Steve isn't too concerned with someone pulling the plug. Not many people say no to Captain America and make it stick.

He sits down next to Sam, his leg twitching. Sam reaches out and sets a hand over his knee, not looking up from his phone. "Chill, baby," he says.

"I am chill," Steve says, and Sam looks up long enough to aim a meaningfully raised eyebrow in his direction.

"You having second thoughts?" he asks.

"No," Steve says, and then, "Maybe."

"It's what he wants, right?" Sam asks, and Steve nods. Sam pats his knee. "So chill."

"I _am_ chill," Steve grumbles again, and then perks up. Stephen Colbert has surfaced from back stage and is walking over, beaming from ear to ear.

"Captain Rogers, Staff Sergeant Wilson, it's an honor to meet both of you," he says. There's a round of handshaking. "I wanted to let you know, we've got the official all clear from Legal to proceed with tonight's show - no limits. Before entering the studio, we'll be asking the audience to sign the waiver you requested, and when they're seated the additional security measures will be explained in full. Anyone who wants to leave will be allowed to do so then."

"Glad to hear it," Steve says, though he wasn't expecting anything less. There's a beat of slightly awkward silence, and Steve offers, "That's a nice shield you've got, up on your wall." 

Colbert laughs, looking genuinely pleased. He's a tall man, who looks younger than Steve's pretty sure he is, even under the stage makeup he's got on. "It was a gift from the directors of The Star Spangled Man," he says.

Sam snorts. "Hated that movie," he says. 

"I kinda liked it," Steve admits, "I got a soft spot for musicals."

"My drama club put it on while I was in college," Colbert says, "I played Bucky Barnes."

"No shit," Sam says, glancing over at Steve. "You still know any of the songs?"

"Every word. Still know the choreography, too," Colbert says, grinning sheepishly. "Bucky had the best routine of the whole play - no offense, Captain."

"I was never much of a dancer," Steve says, feeling a little at sea. "And call me Steve, please."

Colbert's smile widens. "Steve," he repeats. It's surreal, to be talking to the man - Steve's never seen him out of character before. Even stranger to see him take a half step back and neatly execute the steps from Bucky Barnes' big number, "Last Boat to Brooklyn." Colbert finishes with a flourish, laughing like a little kid at himself. It's contagious, and Steve finds himself exchanging a grin with Sam. A few crew members applaud.

"Well, I was not expecting that," Sam allows. 

"Maybe we can bring it back to Broadway," Colbert says, still laughing a little. "Anyway, I also wanted to say how excited we are that you're here, and - I'm sure you've watched it before, but I try to warn our guests not to take anything I say on the show to heart. The character's pretty myopic. I mean, that's the whole point of him."

"Of course," Steve says. The camera crew are doing final checks. He can hear the audience milling around in the holding room, laughing - excited to be indoors, speculating about who the guest was gonna be.

"I'm sure you hear this a lot, but I'm very inspired by you, in what we do here," Colbert tells him, earnestly. 

"That's - " Steve looks at Sam. "Ouch."

Colbert's eyes widen. "Oh no, no no - that's not what I mean. Actually, it's funny you say that - when our writing staff originally pitched the What Would Captain America Do segment, we originally saw it as -". He breaks off, laughing. "I feel terrible actually saying this to your face. It wasn't personal."

Oh lord," Sam says, laughing. "Was it racist old man yelling at clouds stuff?"

"Yelling at what?" Steve asks, frowning.

"Pretty much," Colbert answers Sam, and then to Steve, "I am sorry."

"That isn't how the segments go, though," Steve says. "I wouldn't have come on here if it was."

"No," Colbert says, thoughtfully. "The consensus was that it would be a wasted opportunity. Why not make Captain America progressive? There were a lot more positive things we could do with that. Historically speaking, you were more likely to be liberal anyway."

Steve huffs a laugh. "You know, no one's ever even asked."

"Well, what are your beliefs?" Colbert asks, not missing a beat. 

Steve hesitates, and then admits, "I was a Socialist, back in the day. Now - I don't know. Still pretty far to the left. I - I didn't think you'd actually ask."

Colbert shrugs. A PA taps him on the shoulder and lets them know they have fifteen minutes until the doors open. 

"We have a lot of opinions about Captain America, on the show," Colbert says easily. "As a historical figure and as a metaphor for American identity ... how limiting Cap is as an idea, and how powerful he _could_ be, in some ways."

"How do you mean, limiting?" Steve asks, and sees Sam's eyes drop to the ground, like he's embarrassed.

"Well - take the assumption that Captain America would be some racist, Republican dinosaur," Colbert says. "You've shocked people this year, by jumping into popular culture and showing you grok it - which has been _so_ fun to watch. But it's an interesting question - why would we think of someone who, culturally speaking, _literally embodies_ America like that? It's a pretty awful indication of what we must think of as American values - and how inaccessible they are to so many Americans.

But I don't think Cap's about how America's the best," Colbert continues, "he's an example to live up to. He embodies these beautiful ideas, that we as a country or a people stand up for what's right, that we fight for justice and equality - but the reality is, we don't. We go out and kill people from a distance for profit, and call it freedom."

"We turn around and oppress our own people, and pretend that racism is dead," Sam says. 

Colbert nods. "If Captain America is how we _want_ to see ourselves, then we should be taking a long look into how we get there. We _aren't_ living up to the ideal. We are failing to be exceptional in so many ways - especially at justice and equality. We have a responsibility not just to do good, but to do _better_. So in that - on the show and in my own life, personally - we try and live up to your example. Captain America's example, I mean."

Sam huffs a laugh and says quietly, "Do the best you can, until you know better. Then do better."

Steve's staring down at his shoes. After a second, he looks up. "Thank you," he says.

"For what?" Colbert asks, a wry twist to his mouth.

Steve nods, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Noticing there's a difference. I feel like I've spent the last three years trying to live up to Captain America's example. But it's impossible. Even for me."

"I think that's the point, though," Colbert says. "All those beautiful ideas about equality and fairness and justice - you can never look around and say: 'that's it, I won this fight. There's nothing else I can do.' We can always do better."

"Do the best I can," Steve echoes, looking at Sam. "I can do that."

"I know," Sam says, quietly. He turns to Colbert, offering up a grin. "If he was any more ready to start rolling he'd explode," he says. "Tell me you're gonna put me out of my misery soon, man."

"We'll be ready soon," Colbert says, reassuringly. "Although we've more or less had to rewrite a few episodes' worth of jokes on the fly. Captain's Orders threw us for a loop."

"Tell me about it," Steve says, grimly.

"After SHIELD, the show was pushing for a new anti-Nazi drone program," Colbert says, shaking his head. "I guess we were a little on the nose with that. We're thinking of planting a HYDRA spy on the writing staff, now ... We've got an intern with long brown hair, maybe we can end the hunt for the Winter Soldier."

"Sounds perfect," Steve says.

Colbert grins. "Awesome, I'll tell the writers you're in support. Anyway, I have a few things to go over before the show starts - feel free to hang out or grab some food in the green room, someone'll be around to direct you once we're ready to start letting people in. I'm glad we had a chance to talk. It's gonna be a great show."

They watch him vanish backstage in contemplative silence. "Captain Communist," Sam says wonderingly, after a moment. 

Steve shakes his head. "Captain Socialist, it's different," he says. 

"Yeah, okay," Sam agrees, and then asks, "so did that help? You feel better?"

Steve takes a deep breath and holds it. There's a PA waiting anxiously a few yards away, ready to shoo him out of sight. "Actually, I do," he says. "This is the right decision."

Sam nods, and offers a smile. "Thank you, Sam," Steve tells him. "For everything."

"You got this," Sam says, still smiling, and pulls Steve into a tight hug.

Steve lets himself be led backstage. He's dressed casually tonight - jeans and a button up shirt, nothing so formal as the suit he usually wears for planned appearances. It had been Tony's advice - "Go human," he'd said. They put a bit of powder on him and otherwise leave him alone while the studio fills. He can hear his own name being whispered, as the audience jumps to the obvious conclusion of why they've been asked to completely shut down all phones and devices, and sign a waiver to allow electronic monitoring. 

They forego the warm up guy, and much of Colbert's Q&A is answering questions about the extra security measures. There's a hum of excitement in the crowd that starts building as soon as he admits that tonight's guest is Captain America - the expectation that maybe they're going to see real news being made. 

Almost immediately after that, Sam's spotted in the front row, and steps up to answer a few questions himself. Steve's still waiting just off stage and Sam makes faces at him from time to time, trying to hide a big grin in his microphone. 

And then - 

The theme music. The audience, cheering to beat the band. Colbert, waving the audience back into their seats with a smile. 

"Nation," he says solemnly. "I'd like to speak with you about Captain America."

A few people whoop, but most of the audience is quiet, waiting.

"Yes, Captain America!" Colbert continues. "As you know, I am a big admirer of Captain America. He always knows the right thing to do - as long as it's preserving the status quo. He always stands up for what's just - which has historically aligned with Western interests. He's as infallible as Santa Claus and twice as patriotic. He's the American ideal - a white man who does not need health insurance."

Colbert's voice drops, becoming more intimate, confidential. "Nation - it has been almost _three years_ since Captain America was thawed, like a prime cut of one hundred percent American beef that was left tragically too long in the back of a freezer. And yet in all this time he has never been a guest on my show. I've spent many sleepless nights wondering just what I had done wrong - if somehow it was possible I had loved America _too much_."

There's a pause, as Colbert casts his eyes up to the heavens and wipes away an imaginary tear. When he continues, his tone is stronger, gaining confidence: "But in times of trouble, Captain America knew that there was only one place he could seek amnesty - and it wasn't going to be through our nation's porous southern border. No - tonight he has finally come to his senses. Tonight, he has left New York City and come to the _real_ heart of this great land. Please join me in welcoming to the Colbert Report - _Captain America_!"

Steve barely hears the audience roar as he crosses the stage. He can see Sam from the corner of his eye, seated in the front row, whooping and clapping. He shakes hands with Colbert, formally. On camera, Colbert looks different - his features harder, more settled. Steve can hardly see any of the easy laughter they shared before. 

"Captain Rogers," Colbert starts, and Steve holds up a hand.

"Steve," he says, and there - the glimpse of humanity.

"Steve," Colbert allows. "We are so glad to have you."

"I'm glad to be here," Steve says. "I'm sorry it took me so long. You cast a pretty big shadow, as a patriot."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Colbert says. "And although I'm happily married, I do mean _everywhere_. But let me get straight to the point. You are the talk of the town, Steve - and by town, I mean the internet. An amazing story of courage went up on Buzzfeed yesterday, about the collapse of SHIELD and the crash of the three Helicarrier ships into the Potomac River, and you feature pretty heavily."

He directs his next comment to the big camera set up on center stage. "The exact details of that crash had never been made public," Colbert says. Despite the tone of his opening monologue, his face is serious now, giving the story the gravity it deserves. "The targeting system of the Helicarriers was dumped online with the rest of SHIELD's files, but what SHIELD had called Project Insight was not. For anyone out there with basic cable and yet no internet, Project Insight was, essentially, a target list that HYDRA had created of thousands of people - potentially tens of thousands of people, to be systematically murdered that day."

Steve nods. "Anyone who was a threat to them."

"I don't know how many people have looked at the list," Colbert says, looking out into the audience. "I had a chance to, yesterday. My name is on it. Along with thousands of other people, you also saved my life, sir."

Steve bows his head. "I think it's clear from the article that I wasn't alone, in doing so."

"Yes," Colbert says. "I don't mean to say otherwise. These SHIELD agents - a lot of whom, it seems, had no field experience and had certainly never had a gun pointed at them before - showed extraordinary courage in fighting back against HYDRA, with no more information than that they were being asked to do so by Captain America."

"I was - very humbled, when I read Captain's Orders," Steve says. It's true. He still is. "I'm grateful to the authors, for making their story known. These agents acted with real heroism that day and the world deserves to know about it."

At that, the audience starts to applaud. It builds and builds until everyone is on their feet. The noise is overwhelming, louder than when Steve walked onstage. Steve watches the big cameras turn to take it all in. 

"Take us through the moment," Colbert says, after the moment dies down. "You had escaped from the Triskelion two days prior. You fought a man in DC who is alleged to be the Winter Soldier - an assassin thought by most of the intelligence community to be a Cold War spook story. You were taken into custody by SHIELD and then rescued by former Deputy Director of SHIELD, Maria Hill. The next day, you launch an attack on the Triskelion itself, to prevent the launch of the Insight Helicarriers."

"Yes," Steve says. "We knew that we wouldn't be able to take HYDRA on our own, with so few operatives. But the return of HYDRA seemed so unbelievable that we had no idea whether we could convince anyone of the truth."

"It seems you could," Colbert says. " 'I'm not going to launch the ships, sir - Captain's orders.' Incredibly powerful."

"I asked for sacrifice, and it was willingly given," Steve says. "Not only their lives, but their reputations, their careers, their family's well being. The country owes these men and women a debt of gratitude, not a witch hunt."

"It seems so," Colbert says, nodding. "How about the other side of this story - the HYDRA operative they've called the Winter Soldier, and the accusation of a widespread conspiracy to cover up his existence? On the surface it too incredible to be true - that one man could be responsible for dozens of assassinations over the course of more than fifty years. The eyewitness accounts of his attacks in downtown DC and at the Triskelion are - frankly - terrifying. Steve, you fought the man - what do you think? Do we have another supervillain on our hands?"

Steve looks out into the audience, catches Sam's eye. Sam's sitting straight in his chair, his hands folded in his lap, face solemn. He gives Steve a little nod, and Steve nods back.

He swallows, and begins. "I can confirm that the Winter Soldier does exist, and his history as posted by the authors of Captain's Orders is the truth. It's why I've come on your show tonight. I'm aware that there's a manhunt going on right now, online. I'm grateful people are banding together to - " 

The right words are hard to find. Tony's team had already prepared a statement for him, when they still thought a press conference was gonna happen, but none of it fits.

" - to seek justice for the people who were killed in DC," he settles on, finally. "But it's not necessary. The Winter Soldier is in my custody, and has been since shortly after the collapse of SHIELD."

Colbert leans back in his seat. It's funny how different his expressions are, in character, but Steve can see realization dawning in his eyes, that Captain America really has brought real news onto his show.

"The Winter Soldier is in your custody," Colbert repeats. "Why wasn't he turned over to the authorities?"

"There was no one to turn him over to," Steve says. "The Winter Soldier is as much of a victim of HYDRA as anyone else."

Colbert frowns. Steve can't blame him. For a moment he feels a soft brush of pity across his heart, for what he's about to do. "How do you know that?" Colbert asks.

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His hands are steady, braced on top of Colbert's desk. This is it. "Because I know him," he says. "I've known him all my life. The Winter Soldier was born in Brooklyn, in 1917, and his name is James Buchanan Barnes."

The silence is deafening. The audience is completely quiet, a sea of stunned faces. The crew standing at their places around stage look at each other. In the front row, Sam is glancing around, his expression tense. Colbert seems completely frozen - struggling to stay in character, maybe, or just struggling with what Steve has just told the world. His hand lifts off the desk and then just hangs in the air, the motion suspended and uncertain. So Steve keeps talking.

"In 1943, when Sergeant Barnes was held captive by HYDRA, he was injected with a version of the same serum that had been given to me. We knew that he had been experimented on by Arnim Zola, but we had no idea that it had anything to do with reproducing Erskine's formula or that it had been successful. He wasn't outwardly changed, like I was, but the serum allowed him to - to survive the fall from Zola's train. He was captured again by HYDRA - and they spent the next decades changing him into the weapon we met that day in DC."

"Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier," Colbert says, softly, and presses a hand to his mouth.

"Yes," Steve says, "but I want to be very clear on this. Sergeant Barnes was tortured and brainwashed for decades, beyond the endurance of any person's ability to withstand. That he is alive at all is a testament to his courage and strength. He is not a villain. He is not a mass murderer. He is our country's longest serving POW."

The audience is stirring, their voices a soft buzz of whispers in his ear. 

"I know that this will be painful to hear, for a lot of people," Steve continues. "As far as I'm aware, his actions as described in Captain's Orders are true. Between the attack at Roosevelt Bridge and at the Triskelion, he caused the deaths of at least fourteen people. We have records of dozens of assassinations credited to the Winter Soldier, spanning more than fifty years - as many of you might have read online. 

"These people are victims of HYDRA, and Sergeant Barnes was a weapon they used to further their aims. It's - cold comfort to the people who have lost family members and loved ones. I know it's easier to hate, when you're grieving - when you've got a target you can turn all that hurt onto. I can't fix that," Steve says, and sighs, looking down at his hands. "The only thing I can offer is the truth: that HYDRA took a good man and stripped him of his humanity through isolation, torture and decades of medical experimentation."

He looks up, directly at the camera over Colbert's shoulder. "And we can prove it," he says fiercely. "During the airing of this show, in approximately - four hours, we will be releasing all of the information we have on the Winter Soldier, including decades of medical records showing exactly the kind of Hell Sergeant Barnes lived through."

Steve looks back to Colbert, who lowers his hand back down to the desk, reaching towards his coffee cup and turning it towards himself, aimlessly. He scrubs his other hand over his face, and finally meets Steve's eyes. The character's mask is gone; Colbert's face is open and soft with pain. 

"Bucky Barnes was a hero," Colbert says, quietly. "To change a man like that into - I can't even imagine."

Steve shakes his head. His hands knot together in his lap. "He still is," he says. "He won't like me saying that, but it's true."

"Backstage, earlier," Colbert says, "we were talking about him. About Bucky Barnes. That I played him in The Star Spangled Man, back when I was in college. And I was thinking about that, a few minutes before the show started - wondering if I'd been insensitive. He was your best friend - and here I was, talking about him like he'd been a character in a movie. I'm sorry."

"It's -" Steve's throat closes up. He can't breathe. He can't look at this man's face and see his own pain reflected back at him. "It's all right," he says, when he can, but there's nothing after that, no more words. 

"Do you need some water?" Colbert asks. He signals to someone off stage without waiting for a reply, and a PA rushes out with a bottle. 

"I'm okay," Steve says, but takes a long sip anyway. 

"Take your time," Colbert says. Steve glances to Sam, whose steady gaze feels like a lifeline. His whole body feels naked and aching. His heart feels like a raw nerve. You got this, Sam mouths. Steve hopes that's true.

"How did you find out that your best friend was still alive?" Colbert asks, after a moment.

"HYDRA sent Bucky to kill us - Agent Romanoff, Sam Wilson and me. I'd seen Bucky before - just once. He was wearing a mask that covered the lower half of his face -" Steve gestures, trying to explain. He sees Colbert's eyes flicker over his shoulder, and the audience takes a quick, collective breath. Probably showing the Winter Soldier up on the monitors, then. 

"They had him muzzled like a _dog_ ," Steve says, and can't help the hot, helpless fury that leaks into his voice. "I pulled the mask off, and when I saw his face, I _knew_ -"

Another moment of pained silence, of Steve struggling for breath. The camera lights feel hot on his neck and face. "This is obviously very painful for you," Colbert says. His tone is gentle - pitched so low that Steve looks back over to him. Colbert's angled himself as away from the cameras as is possible to be, his eyes wide and concerned. Offering Steve an out.

Steve shakes his head, trying to clear it. He can do this. "It needs to be told," Steve says, and plunges on. "I knew the second I saw him that something horrible had happened; Bucky would never choose to fight for HYDRA. I knew HYDRA would send him after me again, to finish the mission. And I knew that I had to get him back, no matter what."

From the corner of his vision, he sees Sam shift in his seat, frowning. 

"I lost my best friend," Steve says, his voice cracking. "I lost everything. It had been two years but it never got - " He shakes his head again: focus. It needs to be told. "I made sure I'd be alone when he came after me."

He remembers how hard his heart pounded on Charlie target, sneaking through corridors, avoiding any further engagement once he was inside the 'carrier, wondering if the gamble was gonna pay off. How it had felt to see Bucky already waiting for him, like he'd planned it that way too. 

"If I didn't stop the launch, we were all as good as dead," Steve says. "It was the only chance I had to get through to him. Either we'd both walk out of there, or -" 

He makes himself say it. "Or it would just be him."

" _Steve_ ," Sam says - quiet, to himself - probably not knowing Steve can hear him across the studio. Steve looks over his shoulder. Sam sucks in a breath when their eyes meet, big enough that his shoulders rise and fall with it. Steve can hear how shaky it is, too. _I'm sorry_ , he tries to tell Sam. _I'm sorry._

"What happened next?" Colbert asks, into the hush of the studio. Steve looks around, a little startled. He'd almost forgotten the audience, the lights, the eyes on him. 

"He couldn't kill me," Steve says. "He tried - but he couldn't. I fell into the river, and he pulled me to shore. He saved my life."

"How was he able to break free of HYDRA's control?" Colbert asks. "How can you be sure he's not still acting as the Winter Soldier?"

"Because he's Bucky Barnes," Steve says. "You know him. All of you - you've known Bucky all your lives. You wrote papers about him in school. You played him in a musical. You watched the cartoons. You read books about him and me growing up in Brooklyn. You grew up with us."

Colbert opens his mouth - and then closes it again, cutting off whatever he was about to say next. He nods, just a little - eyes distant. Remembering, maybe.

"If you're asking me whether Buck is dangerous - of course he is," Steve says. "We both are. We were built to be weapons. Is he a threat? No. He's Bucky Barnes. You know who he is."

There's a long moment of silence. Sam is looking around at the people on all sides of him, eyes bright, fighting a smile. The faces of the audience are the same as Colbert's: thoughtful and far off. 

"So what will you do next?" Colbert asks. 

Steve tips his chin back and looks up into the bright lights above them. "I don't know," he says. It's not true; he has a lot of ideas about how they'll handle the fallout, what they'll do if anyone tries to come after Bucky for what he did as the Winter Soldier. 

But what is true, the most true answer he could offer, isn't one that he could explain, because the answer is: anything. 

So he looks back at Colbert and smiles, soft and warm. Colbert straightens up in his seat, unconsciously, and Steve feels laughter bubble up in his chest. _Anything_. "I don't know," he says again. "What Will Captain America Do?"

At that, Colbert laughs too, like he can't help himself. 

"Make something up," Steve tells him. "Make it good." 

-

The city feels hushed and cool, after the closeness of the studio. It feels quiet - as quiet as Manhattan ever is, just the susurrus of yellow cabs rushing over rain slicked streets. It feels like the world sucked in a breath that it hasn't let go of yet.

To Steve's right, the sun is setting over the Hudson River. If they walked a few blocks west they could see it go down and watch the lights come on over Jersey City. To Sam's left, a little south, the sky over Times Square is already lit up like Christmas, or the Fourth of July.

A shadow detaches itself from the brick wall of the studio. The cherry glow of a cigarette gleams in the dim sodium light, refracted against a metal hand that taps ashes off the end, carefully. For a long time they stand there, a loose triangle: Sam at Steve's left, his hands in his pockets, shoulders drawn up a little in the cold. At Steve's right, a handful of yards away, Bucky - 

Bucky. 

Sleeves pushed up around his elbows, like he has nothing to hide. Eyes steady on Steve, pale and large under the streetlamp. The faintest hint of a smile in there.

"All right, let's not make a production of it," Sam says, after a moment, and gets walking towards 9th Ave, back towards the bustle and noise of Midtown. Bucky waits until Steve draws up before falling in line, bumping Steve a little with his shoulder. Steve bumps back, a dumb grin on his face like someone's painted it there. In step, they walk on towards the light.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when you start a story as a writing exercise, and continue it as a character study, and then you try and put some plot into it - it can be pretty surprising to realize you've basically painted yourself into a corner of all the fanon cliches (camping out at Stark Tower! Surprisingly compliant Tony Stark! Bucky and Steve hanging out for literally months!). I tried to put something a little different in - paint myself out of that corner, hah.
> 
> I'm going anti-fanon for my next project - modern AU! Never thought I'd say that, but for all the CA stories set in Brooklyn, I haven't seen any that really capture how totally fucking weird it is to be queer, in your late 20s and trying to date here. It's pretty fucking weird, guys. If that sounds like fun or if you wanna rec me some stories that capture the weirdness of queer dating in Brooklyn (please!!), I'm on tumblr as [mssr-herringbone.](mssr-herringbone.Tumblr.com)
> 
> Almost forgot to add - went to a taping of the Colbert Report earlier this year and Stephen Colbert is legit the nicest, and legit a musical theatre kid. He sang us a song from Jesus Christ Superstar.


End file.
